


In The Woods Somewhere

by Ias



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Accidental Plot, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Blood Drinking, Dark, Fantasizing, Hand Jobs, Horror, Literally so much plot oh my god who allowed this, M/M, Masturbation, Mechanic!Bard, Power Play, Psychological Horror, Slow Burn, Unhealthy Relationships, Vampire!Thranduil, Vampires, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-09
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-03-06 19:44:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 32
Words: 249,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3146357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ias/pseuds/Ias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These country roads were rarely traveled by any that didn't need to. When Thranduil pulled up beside the man's stopped vehicle and offered him a smile and a ride, there was no one to see the man's grateful expression as he slipped into Thranduil's car. No one to stand by and call out a warning as the taillights were swallowed by the dark branches of the trees.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

He caught sight of the man for the first time at the gas station. Brown hair, longer than most. Tired eyes. His clothes were rugged, patched up in many places, his dingy jeans stuffed into work boots and his hands in the pockets of a brown jacket. Scruffy, but not slovenly. When he ordered his food from the window seat in the diner, he smiled at the waitress and knew her name.

Thranduil liked him. That was enough.

He had been following the man for a while, the choking fumes of a deftly punctured gas tank drifting through Thranduil's open window on the night air, as the truck passed out of town and under the open arms of the forest. It broke down slightly sooner than Thranduil had anticipated—hardly a problem. These country roads were rarely travelled by any that didn't need to. When Thranduil pulled up beside the man's stopped vehicle and offered him a smile and a ride, there was no one to see the man's grateful expression as he slipped into Thranduil's car. No one to stand by and call out a warning as the taillights were swallowed by the dark branches of the trees.

"Thanks for stopping," he said, offering Thranduil a grin. "You're a real lifesaver."

Thranduil's own smile was less friendly. "Your gratitude is misplaced."

He could kill him right now, he mused. Simply pull off to the side of the road, turn off the lights in the car, pin the man's head to the seat back with a single hand and bury his teeth into his neck. He could smell his blood even now, the sharp metallic pang of it like something physical pulsing against Thranduil's skin. He breathed it in deep, his hands resting lightly on the wheel. He would wait a while longer. He'd never been one to go for the quick kill. He liked to savor it.

The man seemed to be slightly nervous now, those animal instincts prickling with a message that had come far too late: _There is a predator nearby. You are prey._

"Anyway, I should have phone reception to call the tow truck once we're out of the woods," the man was saying with an uncomfortable edge in his voice. "And I'm Bard, by the way."

"Bard," Thranduil repeated idly. The name sounded guttural in his throat. "Like a musician."

Bard laughed. "I guess so. I never was good with instruments." A pause stretched between them. "Aren't you going to tell me your name?" he said at last.

Thranduil chuckled. "Maybe not."

Bard raised an eyebrow. "Why not?"

Thranduil glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, with a smile that could have been playful. "Perhaps I like to remain mysterious."

He saw the man grin and look away, slightly flustered perhaps. The car's headlights passed a gap in the trees, just wide enough to fit the body of the car if he swerved from the road and sent them both crashing into the arms of the waiting forest. Perhaps he wouldn't do it in the car. That way he wouldn't have to be neat. He would drive as far as the forest let him, ignoring the man's protestations until he slammed on the brakes, would drag his companion out of the car by the front of his shirt, fabric ripping, slam his shoulders against the trunk of a tree and drive the breath from his lungs. He imagined the first scream would be hoarse and choked as he began to feed. The thought of it sent a pleasant prickle down Thranduil's spine. If the police ever found the body, no doubt they would call it a bear attack.

"It's a good thing you came along so soon," Bard said. "Not too many people come out this way at night, and with the bad phone reception I might have had to walk."

"Do you live far from here?" Thranduil asked, rubbing his thumb over the surface of the steering wheel in idle, meaningful circles. He could feel the man's eyes follow the motion.

"Not too far," he said after a moment. "There's a little cluster of houses just outside the next town over."

"And you live alone?"

Perhaps the man misunderstood Thranduil's intentions—he hesitated. "Just me and the kids," he said at last.

Thranduil's smile widened. "How many children?" When Bard didn't respond, Thranduil glanced over with an apologetic smile, calling to the surface the easy charm he'd managed to cultivate in order to put humans at ease. "Forgive me. I didn't mean to pry. Just tell me where to take you, and I won't ask any more questions."

Bard smiled, the inner animal soothed for now. "No, it's alright. I guess I'm just a bit jumpy—stranger's car, dark night, middle of the woods and all."

Thranduil chuckled. "Understandable."

"I have three," Bard said. "Two daughters and a son. Their mother passed away." The last part he said almost too quickly, with the practice of someone who had come to anticipate the question.

Thranduil wasted no time on empty condolences. "Childbirth?"

The man looked at him sharply. "How did you know?"

Thranduil shrugged. "A lucky guess, I suppose. From the way that you sounded while talking about your children."

Bard shook his head. "You know, most people just say that they're sorry for my loss."

Thranduil glanced at the other man. "Do you want me to?"

Bard was quiet. "Not really."

A smile crept back onto Thranduil's lips as he drove, the headlights carving a hazy patch of light out of the road ahead of them. He could smell the sweat lingering on Bard's skin, hear the rustle of each thread in his clothing as the other man shifted position. His heartbeat was like a gentle, insistent tapping on the periphery of Thranduil's mind, impossible to ignore. It had been some time since Thranduil had hunted like this, taking the time to stalk his prey instead of simply feeding on the drunk or forgotten in back alleys with little ceremony or enjoyment. He had almost forgotten it felt to have the hunt singing in his still, silent heart.

He could feel Bard's eyes lingering on him more freely now, studying him when he thought Thranduil wouldn't see. The weight of his eyes moving across him was as real as the press of fingertips working their way over him, learning every detail.

"Don't take this the wrong way," Bard said after a moment, "but you're very strange."

Thranduil laughed, shooting a languid look across the car. "Would you believe I get that a lot?"

"Yes," Bard replied. Thranduil let his eyes briefly trail over the man in turn, noting how he lounged in his seat, elbow propped on the opposite armrest, knees apart, one foot resting on the inside of the door while the other tapped a nervous rhythm on the floor of the car. He made no effort to disguise his examination the way Bard had tried to do. The other man laughed uncertainly.

"Maybe you should keep your eyes on the road," he said, though it was more of an observation than a suggestion. Thranduil did what he was told with a quirk of his eyebrow, letting Bard return to his own furtive scrutiny. He could hear his heartbeat speeding up ever so slightly, heard the click in his throat as he swallowed. He wanted nothing more than to look over and catch a glimpse of his Adam's apple bobbing beneath the skin. He could simply stop the car in the middle of the road. No one would come. If they did, he could kill them too.

"The turn to my house is coming up," Bard said, a note of tension in his voice. The decision was here. There was enough thick, dark woods to get lost in if Thranduil pulled over now. He wondered if the man would be afraid. If he would beg for mercy, cite his children, try to fight. Thranduil had no doubt that he would. He could practically hear his cries even now, feel the feeble blows he would land even as Thranduil's teeth exposed his artery. He could make life last for hours if he wanted to, sucking hundreds of shallow wounds until the man could do nothing but stare blankly ahead, nearly too weak to breathe, as Thranduil nuzzled the last minutes of life from his neck.

But then again, perhaps a few short hours were not enough.

He made the turn.

It seemed to him that the man's body relaxed ever so slightly as they trundled onto the side road which would take them to Bard's house. Thranduil could hear his pulse slow to something more sedate, the nervous tapping of his foot settling. An island of light appeared in the darkness ahead, a troop of small houses clustered together against the encroaching forest, almost seeming to stand guard. Thranduil eyed them with distaste. They were sealed against him as tightly as thick bubbles of plastic, protected from his kind by rules so old they were written into his very being. He could not enter—unless, of course, he was given an invitation.

"This is us," Bard said, gesturing to a house with a front stoop illuminated by the warm glow of a porch light. Thranduil pulled into the driveway, letting the engine idle as he turned to meet Bard's eye.

If the man's instincts were still telling him to run, Thranduil saw no sign of that now. He sat still, his vision locked with Thranduil's without fear. His hands twisted at the seam of his jacket before he quieted them in his lap with a nervous smile. "I owe you one. Really."

Thranduil shrugged his shoulders with half of a smile. "Don't mention it. Just doing what anyone would do."

Bard's smile twisted into something slightly different. "I just have to make sure the kids are in bed. …Would the mystery stranger like to come inside for a thank-you drink?" he asked, and Thranduil could have crowed, could have laughed in his face and then kissed him on the mouth, could have dragged him through his own front door and torn his throat out over his own kitchen table now that he had permission.

He didn't. He merely smiled, a dark smile that suggested so much yet promised nothing. "I'm afraid not," he said quietly. "I've got to go."

If Bard was disappointed he hid it well. He merely looked away with a slight smile, his fingers drumming a quick rhythm on the armrest. "Right, of course." A shape appeared in the front window, whisking aside the curtains and then turning to speak to someone else inside. Bard unbuckled his seatbelt.

"That's my cue," he said. After a moment, he held out his hand. "Thanks again. Really."

Thranduil stared at it for a moment before reaching out to take it, sliding his hand over the other man's warmer, calloused one. If Bard felt surprise at the coolness of Thranduil's skin, it didn't show. He could feel the man's pulse beating against his fingers like something struggling to escape.

"Well, if you change your mind about that drink," Bard said, "you know where to find me."

As their hands fell apart, Thranduil let his fingers slid over the other man's palm in such a way that he felt Bard's heart-rate jump. The smile he fixed him with was inviting, and showed lots of teeth. "Yes I do."

Bard grinned, looked away, and looked back again, his eyes doing a nervous dance between Thranduil and the door. His hand rested on the handle, ready to leave. Thranduil could keep him here for longer if he wanted, but he made no effort to. Finally, Bard popped open the handle to let the cool night air flood in, mixing the smell of pine and mold with the heady smell of sweat and blood.

"Until next time, then," Bard said, climbing out of the car.

"Until then." The door slammed shut, and Bard walked up to his front door with shoulders that slowly relaxed the further he got from the car. Just as he reached the door he turned to glance back at the car, only for a moment, before he laughed quietly to himself with a shake of his head and raised his hand in a final farewell. Thranduil returned it, though he doubted Bard could see anything but the glare of headlights. The door opened and swallowed Bard up, leaving Thranduil alone in the dark.

He drove back into the woods. The hunger which had driven him to hunt in the first place railed against him, shrieking and wailing like something mad inside of him. He felt empty, hollowed out with a dull knife, craving heat and fear and flesh like a drowning man craved air. He fought the feeling down. He had found something new, something more important than that all-consuming thirst. The promise of a game, and someone who was willing to play. Thranduil smiled to himself in the darkness. It had been too long indeed.

Halfway through the woods, he caught a glimpse of the dull, tan hide of a deer flashing through the trees. In an instant it was in front of him, a whole herd, racing across the road so fast they could have been a dream. He floored the accelerator. The thud of a body hitting his car was enough to jolt the hunger back to life, and when he stepped out of the car to find the animal writhing and twitching on the asphalt, he sank its fangs into its throat with enough force to break its neck.

It was not enough to satisfy. Only to whet his thirst, to hone it as sharp and keen as the edge of a knife. It sang within him, tearing at him from the inside as he tossed the deer's carcass aside. When he killed Bard, he would make it slow.

He was going to enjoy this.


	2. Chapter 2

The moon slid over the horizon like the opening of an eye as Bard finished his work. He twisted a rag in his hands to wipe the engine grease clean and stood in the open door of his garage, watching as the ragged tree-limbs made twisting shadows against a deep blue sky. The electric light in front of his shop flickered on the silent street and the deserted parking lot across from it. Beyond that, the trees began. The town was entwined with the forest like hair through the teeth of a comb, and Bard had gotten used to having the dark trunks nearby. A few of the neighborhood high-schoolers worked part time when Bard could afford to pay them, but otherwise Bard spent most of his days in the garage alone. Night came quickly this time of year, and once again Bard found himself working late. Sigrid had been good about getting Tilda in bed on time when Bard couldn't make it back. He thought he might sit up with Bain and Sigrid as they did their homework. More likely he would end up falling asleep on the couch until Bain tried to stick a pencil in his mouth.

The air was cold on his bare arms as he went to grab his coat. The garage seemed large and empty as he flicked off the main lights, the shape of the cars becoming hulking and sinister in the faint light from outside. Bard paused momentarily, a prickle running down his back. Since his truck had unexpectedly broken down last night he'd been driving one of the old junkers he'd fixed up himself. The car was waiting on the other side of the driveway, a distance that would take no more than five seconds to cross—yet the light barely reached that far, and the driver's side door was facing the forest.

Bard shook his head, forcing himself to laugh. He was being ridiculous. Even Tilda knew by now that there weren't any monsters lurking in the woods. Bard stepped outside and slammed the door to his shop, testing the handle to make sure it was locked before striding towards his car.

"Working late?"

The voice made him curse and spin around, his keys falling to the ground with a clink of metal. There was a man leaning against the side of his shop on the other side of the door, just out of the light. Even before he stepped out of the shadows Bard recognized his voice. It was unmistakable, deep and rich and seeming to pull Bard into some large, empty space.  In the outside air the man looked even more striking than he had in the car, long white-blond hair slicing across his broad shoulders, his eyes an uncanny shade of blue in the stark electric light. It was the kind of face Bard could imagine staring at him from magazine covers; there was something about him that seemed not quite real.

Bard relaxed, even as his heart beat slightly faster. He hadn't expected to see the man again, though part of him had wanted to—now that they were face to face, he couldn't say what he wanted. Instead he smiled uneasily.

"You startled me," he said. His keys were still on the ground, but he hesitated to bend down and pick them up—the action felt strangely vulnerable. The same feeling of tension he'd felt in the car had found him again here, like the feeling of lying in bed listening to the too-silent house simply waiting for something to happen. A slow, cool smile spread across the other man's face.

"Sorry," he said. He didn't sound sorry. He stepped forward and stooped down to pick up Bard's keys for him, straightening to hold them out in his slim fingers. Bard accepted them, trying not to notice the way the man's fingers brushed his own, or remember how they'd slid across his hand such an intimate way the night before.

Bard glanced around the garage, wondering if the man had simply appeared out of thin air. No, there was his car, parked on the street. Just last night Bard had sat in that car, barely two feet from this stranger. The memory made an uncomfortable heat rise in his chest. "How did you find me here?" Bard asked.

"I had hoped to have my car looked at," the man replied, motioning at it idly without looking away.

Bard followed the gesture, and sure enough—he could see the front of the car was slightly dented, one of the headlights broken. "How did that happen?"

The man shook his head, the regret on his face looking almost rehearsed. "I hit a deer."

"That happens a lot around here. Lots of things living in these woods." The man studied him closely, somehow managing to make Bard feel exposed even as the other man's eyes didn't leave his face. There was something predatory about the smile on his face, the thin crescent of teeth an intimation behind his lips.

"I'm sorry," Bard managed. "I was just closing up the shop for the night."

"That's fine," the man said without hesitation or disappointment. "I'll be in town for a while longer."

Bard bobbed his head. "Great. You can bring it by tomorrow, if you like."

The other man's smile widened. He looked almost catlike, his eyes lazily half-closed, hands in the pockets of his black coat. He made no effort to continue the conversation or break eye contact, as if he were simply waiting for Bard to continue the lines of a script he had already read. Well, Bard must have lost that page. He had no idea what the other man wanted—well, maybe he did have an idea, the memory of the man's eyes raking over his body in the car the night before still making Bard's throat go dry. If this was a dance, then Bard couldn't remember the steps, had never even learned them. He hadn't thought he would ever feel like this towards anyone ever again, let alone—well, he could fumble at whatever this was as long as he liked, but he could tell this man wasn't the fumbling type. And so he merely stood there, letting the stranger's eyes pin him to the night like a beetle on corkboard, his toes curling apprehensively inside of his boots.

At long last, the man's head tilted to the side, like an animal regarding him from a different angle. "If I'm going to be honest, I wasn't just hoping to get my car checked up."

Bard's heart rate sped up. "Oh?" His voice sounded strangely distant even to him.

The man nodded slowly. "I was hoping to take you up on that drink."

Bard took in a slow breath to steady his nerves. "Oh." He cleared his throat, avoiding thoughts of what this meant, where it was going, why he wanted to find out. "Sure. That would be great." Suddenly, reality intruded. "Damn, hang on. I need to do something first."

He took a few steps away towards his car and pulled out his cell phone. Ms. Jameson's number was the first to come up; the old woman was Bard's neighbor and was often helping him out with the kids, or leaving cookies on the front porch for them to nearly trip over in the morning rush to school. He dialed and waited, disproportionately nervous. It was just a drink. Bard himself had asked him first. After all, there was nothing strange about buying another man a friendly drink.

The ringing was answered by a good-natured, "Hello?"

"Ms. Jameson, hello," Bard began.

"Ah, Bard!" she said cheerfully. "How are you?"

"I'm doing fine, thanks," Bard said, smiling in spite of himself. "Actually, I was wondering if you'd mind keeping an eye on the kids for a few hours tonight until I get home."

She tut-tutted over the phone. "Working late again are we? You're going to go as grey and bent as I am by the time the year's out, if you keep this up."

Bard chuckled, painfully aware of the man's eyes on his back. "Actually, I was thinking of grabbing a drink. With someone."

There was a brief pause, and when Ms. Jameson spoke again her voice was enthusiastic. "Oh, is that so? Well, that's absolutely fine. I'll love to look after the kids, you know how fond I am of them. Just be sure you have a ride available if you need it, and drink lots of water."

"I will, I will," Bard assured her. "Thank you so much Ms. Jameson."

"It's no problem. I'm glad to hear you're spending time with someone. Have fun." She hung up before Bard had the opportunity to try and explain. That was probably lucky. He lowered the phone, slowly turning to face the stranger behind him. The man had hardly moved, his posture both seemingly at ease but assured nonetheless. Bard wished he could feel the same. He slid the phone into his pocket and stepped closer again.

"Alright," Bard said. "We're good to go."

The man smiled. The darkness behind his teeth seemed empty. "And where shall we go?"

Bard chuckled ruefully. "There's one bar in town. Kind of limits our options."

"Good. Let's not waste time on deliberation." Bard didn't ask what they would be doing with their time instead. He merely muttered something about the man driving behind him and headed to his car before he could think the better of it.

The headlights in his rear-view mirror were the only indication that he wasn't in some sort of dream, that he hadn't taken a wrong turn coming home from work to be driving into town, past the darkened storefronts and flickering streetlights towards the short strip of businesses that stayed open after eight. What was he doing? This was crazy. He didn't even know the man's name, for god's sakes. Was he really the kind of person to start buying drinks for mysterious strangers, staying out late when he could be home with his kids? He should pull over right here, tell this man that he was sorry but he'd made a mistake, and they shouldn't see each other again.

But he didn't pull over. He didn't turn around. He kept driving. He pulled into the parking lot of Dale's Bar, and after a moment's pause, he checked his reflection in the rear-view mirror. His face looked pale against the darkness in the car. It had been a while since he'd really looked at his reflection, tried to step outside of himself and see how others might see him. Mostly what he saw were the bags under his eyes. It didn't matter, either way. Bard was likely misinterpreting the other man's intentions. It was just a drink.

The sound of a car door slamming shut jolted Bard back into the present. He twisted the mirror away and jerked his keys roughly out of the ignition. A few moments later was leading his new companion into the bar before his courage failed him.

The room seemed to press in on them as they walked up to the counter, weaving around the tables jammed into the center of the small room, the more private booths hung with dimmer lights in around the periphery. There were road signs and license plates stuck all over the walls, along with a deer's head that Bard had bet was fake the first time he'd come in here (and won). The bartender, Hilda, was chatting with one of the patrons sitting at the bar. Bard slid onto one of the bar stools and waited for her to drift over, trying not to watch too closely as the other man took the seat beside him.

"What are you drinking?" Bard asked, because it seemed like a normal question under these decidedly abnormal circumstances.

A menu sat ignored by the man's elbow. His eyes wandered over the bar, taking it in with an amused twist of the lips before inevitably settling back on Bard. "Whatever's good."

Bard caught Hilda's eye, asked for two beers. He felt vaguely self-conscious as he watched Hilda draw up two pints, trying to focus more on the amber liquid filling the glass than the man sitting beside him. He didn't seem like the type who would drink beer, but he'd asked Bard what was good and beer was about the only thing Dale's served that he could stomach. When Hilda slid him the drinks with a questioning look that Bard shrugged off, his new friend immediately stood up and carried his pint towards one of the empty booths in the corner of the bar. He moved with a grace that Bard would almost categorize as predatory. He did not walk, he stalked. Bard hurried to follow, leaving his money on the counter and sliding in across from the other man in the dimly lit alcove.

Bard immediately took a long pull from his drink. The beer they served here was cheap and strong, the meager dinner he'd packed himself doing little to dilute the alcohol hitting his system. It took a lot more than one beer to have much of an effect on him, but even before the glass touched his lips he felt as if something was buzzing in his brain.

The other man merely watched him, as he seemed fond of doing, his fingers loosely cupping the beer glass and tracing smooth tracks through the condensation. Bard forced his eyes to the man's face, raising an eyebrow expectantly.

"So, now I've bought you a drink. Do I finally get to know your name?"

The other man smiled as if he found something funny that Bard didn't know yet. "My name is Thranduil."

Both of Bard's eyebrows went up now. "That's an odd name."

"So is Bard."

"I admit that, but yours is definitely stranger."

The man inclined his head, conceding. "Fair enough. I suppose you could say I'm not from around here."

A smile quirked Bard's lips. "And is there any point in asking where it is you're from?"

 "You must allow me some secrets."

Bard let it go, drinking slow but deep from his glass as he thought of what he might say. It was difficult to gather his thoughts when this man—Thranduil, he reminded himself, turning the name over in his mind until it settled there—insisted on staring at him without letting up. Bard wasn't sure whether he should return to gaze or look away, just let himself be scrutinized. It wasn't in his nature to balk from a challenge, so he met Thranduil's gaze. The eye contact seemed to reach into Bard's chest and yank, scattering his thoughts like leaves. Yet he couldn't seem to look away.

Finally, the other man blinked, and Bard realized he had forgotten to take a breath. "You seem uncomfortable," Thranduil commented.

Bard shrugged in a way he hoped seemed casual. "I suppose I am. It's been a long time since I've had a drink with someone."

"Not even your friends?" Thranduil asked pointedly.

Bard shook his head, staring at his hands still gripping the pint of beer. There was still oil around his fingertips that he hadn't been able to rub out. "I don't see a lot of people these days. My wife was the one who wanted to take us out, be with people, and—after, I just sort of," he shrugged. "Stopped." Bard immediately winced, shaking his head. "Sorry. Not the time or place for that sort of thing. Let's talk about something else."

Thranduil's eyes showed no dewy sympathy like Bard was used to receiving after such declarations. There was only something empty and waiting in his gaze, a hunger which Bard had tried to ignore and reason away. "But I want to talk about you," he said softly.

Bard's eyes flicked down to his pint as he took another hurried drink, his mind racing through the scenario and drawing no experience to pull from. He knew it was obvious it was nervous, but his companion didn't seem to mind. The way his eyes watched Bard with thinly veiled amusement suggested that he liked the effect he was having.

"There's not much to tell," Bard muttered. "I'm not that interesting."

"I beg to differ." Thranduil leaned forward slightly. "I find you very interesting."

Bard laughed uneasily. "You don't even know me."

"You don't know me either. Yet you agreed to buy me a drink."

Bard shrugged, lifting his glass. "It's the friendly thing to do."

"And do you want us to be friends, Bard?" Thranduil asked, his fingers running in little circles on the side of the glass the same way they had moved on the steering wheel last night. Bard could practically feel them.

He wasn't sure what he was meant to say to that, what the next move was to continue the conversation. So instead he just said, "I like you well enough so far."

That seemed to please the other man, because that strange, compelling grin split his features once again. Bard lifted his glass to drain it. As he drank, Thranduil's eyes trailed from Bard's, wandering down to follow the bobbing of his throat as he swallowed. His smile lost its edges then, the flash in of amusement in his eyes darkening into something else that made the hair on Bard's neck prickle and something warm twist in his stomach. The other man's eyes finally dropped from Bard's as he reached into the inner pocket of his coat and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

"You've probably heard that smoking kills," Bard said, in a tone more at-ease than he felt.  

Thranduil smirked. "I only smoke on special occasions."

Bard raised an eyebrow. "Is this a special occasion?"

The other man's eyes glinted. "Maybe. Do you mind?" he drawled.

"No, I don't mind." He watched as the other man tapped a cigarette out of the box and placed it between his lips, the flame from his lighter dancing briefly in his eyes. At once an image sprung up in Bard's mind, a candle in a dark house, a gust of cold wind about to send it guttering out. It disappeared with the click of the lighter as Thranduil's cool, bright eyes lifted to Bard's own. The cigarette was once again a cigarette.

Bard cleared his throat. "You haven't even touched your drink."

Thranduil said nothing, merely leaning back in his chair with his cigarette in hand and stretching his legs out. It was a narrow booth. His long legs slid against Bard's, their knees brushing. Bard's first instinct was to pull away automatically, but he froze—the other man did not seem inclined to move, letting their legs rest against each others' underneath the table. The contact sent Bard's heart pounding in his throat.

A curl of smoke escaped Thranduil's lips and spiraled up through the air between them. "I didn't come here to drink."

Bard felt the other man's legs shift against his own, stopping his breath in his chest. There were people here in the bar, if they saw him—he should pull away. He didn't. Were his hands sweating as they clenched the empty glass, or was it merely the condensation? He should apologize, and leave. But he couldn't seem to pry his eyes away from the glow of Thranduil's cigarette as he took another draw, the way the smoke played over his lips as it wound its way up the ceiling. The pressure of the other man's leg resting against his own was so little, but Bard found himself wondering when the last time he'd had physical contact with someone like this, the last time someone had touched him the way this stranger did now. His body felt warmer than it should, the walls of the booth closer. And still Thranduil stared.

"I hate smoking inside," he said after a long pause.

"Oh," Bard said, struggling to get his voice back to a normal cadence. The look on Thranduil's face told him what to say next. "Do you want to step outside for a while?"

Thranduil said nothing, merely smiled that smile and pulled back his legs, sliding out of the booth and standing as Bard followed suit. Nervousness made his knees feel as if they were held together with worn-out elastic, but he trailed after Thranduil to the door with a sense of purpose. Hilda waved to him as he left, and he realized then that he wouldn't be coming back in. Whatever was happening outside of those doors, it would mean there was no going back. He should stay inside.

He stepped across the threshold, the night air touching his face like ghostly fingers as he followed Thranduil into the dark.


	3. Chapter 3

It was too easy.

Bard followed him as if an invisible thread was pulling him onward. Thranduil could feel how tenuous the connection was, how one wrong move would cause it to snap. Each smile was a delicate tug, coaxing Bard out of the booth, out of the bar, away from the prying eyes and smoky air. Out into the embracing night.

As soon as Thranduil stepped crossed the threshold all other sensations rushed away, leaving nothing but the empty, black canvas waiting in their stead. Stars freckled the sky, but beyond the light of the bar the street was dark and imposing. Behind the buildings the tops of the trees closed in like jaws on the asphalt road.  Thranduil could sense Bard behind him as he guided the other man onward. Bard scarcely even hesitated—yet he was not at ease. Tension radiated off him like the heat from his body, but with it came a sense of resolve. Eagerness, even. It was almost endearing. Thranduil smiled to himself. He had chosen well with this one.

He had existed in this world for a very long time, and year after year he had fed. It did not take long for the thrill of it to fade, for the faces of his victims to bleed together as time marched on. He had killed in every way imaginable—in the end most humans died the same, with little difference between the fear, the blood, the final stillness settling in. Death held no surprises for him now. He had to find other ways to entertain himself.

Thranduil stopped, turned to face Bard, took another drag of his cigarette. The bitterness of smoke helped stave off the hunger, mask the alluring aroma of blood. Thranduil breathed deep now, the smoke dissipating in the night air. The bar had been too much, the smell of sweat and alcohol muddling up the air. Now he could pick up the scent coming off the other man's skin with every breath, sweet and thick and rich, enough to make Thranduil's fingers flex with the thought of tracing those arteries. Thranduil had lived for many long years. His veins were cold, dry, stagnant. He was dead but not decaying—embalmed within himself. Yet it was life his body craved, hot and wet and thrumming.  

He tilted his head back and inspected the stars. The moon was whittled down to a sliver, balancing on Orion's arm. Bright moonlight could send a prickle running over his skin with the faint touch of the sun, but the stars were ever his constant companions. An exhalation of smoke lifted to brush across the sky. "I always did love the night," Thranduil murmured. "It touches the mundane with a sense of something significant. All the most important events in our lives happen because the sun goes down."

He heard a quiet huff of laughter beside him. "Most people would just compliment the stars."

Thranduil tilted his head with a touch of a playful smile. "Perhaps I was trying to be original."

"Or pretentious."

Thranduil laughed, a sound which almost managed to surprise even himself. Bard looked away with a private smile of his own. His eyes scanned the dark trees beyond the street. "I used to be afraid of the dark when I was a kid," he mused. "I was always too embarrassed to sleep with a night-light, so I'd just lie awake until I was too exhausted to keep my eyes open."

Thranduil chuckled, enjoying the image of a young Bard wracked with childish terror as he turned his eyes back to the heavens. All children were born in the dark, and feared it above all else. Only as adults would they learn to crawl back towards the light. Thranduil knew that better than most.

When Thranduil lowered his gaze, Bard had lifted his—his eyes traced the constellations, his neck tilted back. Exposed. The surface of his skin twitched with every beat of his heart. Thranduil's mind began once again to wander those familiar corridors, those deep red thoughts. He wanted nothing more than to do it now, right now, the hunger lunging like an animal at the bars of a cage inside of him. It was a separate part of him from himself, something which stalked the corners of his mind, muscles oily black, jaws hanging open. He denied it, blinking away the sight of Bard's throat. The impulses receded once again to circle the periphery of his consciousness, but as always, they were waiting.  "And did you have nightmares?"

If Bard heard the tension in his voice he didn't acknowledge it. He merely shook his head. "No. Hardly ever."

Thranduil took one last pull from his cigarette before dropping it to the ground and grinding it into the pavement. "I do not remember the last time I dreamed." He met Bard's eyes with a single eyebrow raised. "Shall we walk?"

Bard's expression was uncertain, but his eyes glinted. "Where will we go?"

Thranduil smiled easily. Another tug on the thread. "Until we feel like stopping."

Bard glanced between him to the bar. "I can't be gone for too long," he said hesitantly.

"Have to be home for the kids?"

Bard looked up in surprise, no doubt expecting something mocking in Thranduil's eyes. He found only understanding, as best as Thranduil could manufacture. Bard smiled gratefully, bobbing his head. "I didn't want to bring it up earlier. Thought it might kill the mood."

Thranduil inclined his head. "We can turn back whenever you like."

Bard fell into step beside him, their shoulders brushing as the light from the bar nipped their heels. The row of streetlights led them down the dark street like a trail of breadcrumbs. He could feel the man's warmth like a furnace beside him, the sweet smell of blood surrounding him like a cloud. It was maddening. The bloodlust rose again, dangerously near to the surface. Beneath the slight twitching of his smile, there was something sharp.

"I don't get out much anymore," Bard was saying.

"Why is that?" Thranduil asked.

Bard shrugged. "With the kids, and working late… I just never felt the inclination. Until now," he amended with a rueful smile. "Have to get back on the horse sometime."

Thranduil raised his eyebrows. "And am I a horse in this metaphor?"

Bard laughed. "You've got the mane for it."

Thranduil shared the laugh with ease, shooting Bard a look out of the corner of his eye to find the other man watching him. "Sorry," Bard said. "That was bad, wasn't it?"

"Incredibly so," Thranduil agreed amicably. He moved slightly closer, so that where once their shoulders were brushing they now were flush together. Bard looked away with a quiet smile.

It took effort to walk with the gait of a normal man, the proper looseness of the limbs, a slight scuffing in the feet. The act was well-practiced, but never perfect. There would always be something unnatural in the way that he moved. If part of the man's hindbrain could still sense what Thranduil was, Bard was clearly ignoring it. There was no smell of fear in the air, which was good—Thranduil was not sure that he could resist it. If the way Bard's eyes seemed to dart and skitter away from Thranduil's, he would guess the man was nervous, but not for the reasons he should have been. There was something else, a different scent winding around the pulse of blood, a baser note that sent Thranduil's skin humming as if it was charged with an electric current. He could recognize the smell of lust. He knew it well.

He enjoyed the tension in the other man's body beside him, the way Bard's eyes trailed over him when he thought Thranduil was not looking. Thranduil led him into the dark. He knew well the ways that he glowed, his hair and skin as silver and bright as the lure of an anglerfish. And Bard followed it, entranced, or perhaps just curious. Thranduil did not need his sharpened senses to know that Bard was attracted to him. It was not a novel experience. He could make people like him, if he wished. Yet this was something more than the usual dance of fish and lure. The man beside him had been broken once—Thranduil could see that quickly. He could also see that he had not lost his kindness, his compassion. He was old embers. Weaker than flame, perhaps, but where the heat of fire was repelling, this warmth drew Thranduil closer.

They had walked far enough by then that the noise and light and smell of the bar were behind them. The streetlights cast an amber glow at their feet, the darkness laced between them like telephone wires. A light breeze toyed with a stray napkin in the road, dusting it across the street before losing interest and falling still. From the nearby woods, the crickets were a dull roar.

"This is a quiet town," Thranduil said softly.

 "Are you from the city?" Bard eyed him shrewdly. When Thranduil only smiled, Bard shook his head. "Am I allowed to know nothing about you?"

"Why do you want to know?" Thranduil asked. His face revealed nothing.

Bard shrugged. "I don't know. It seems strange not to. I'm not sure what's normal for… this."

Thranduil glanced at him knowingly from the corner of his eye. "And what is 'this'?"

Bard swallowed whatever he was about to say, looking away, looking back. It seemed they were circling each other, orbiting some central axis that neither of them would reach, not yet. The circles were growing tighter.

They walked along the brick wall of a building flush with the sidewalk, the windows blank and blind. The silence between them grew comfortable, but something else lingered on the edges. And the wall beside them stopped and became something else, like a door swinging open in the eyes—they had come upon an alley. It cut between the buildings beside them and snaked into a darkness as impenetrable as a black wall. Thranduil stopped walking, and Bard stopped with him. Bard's eyes darted to the opening nervously, that human instinct to fear the dark flaring up once again. Thranduil could feel its gentle pull, the way a sheer drop seemed to have its own special gravity, a voice that whispered _jump_. Where he could feel Bard pulling away from the fall, Thranduil swayed closer.  

 "I like this town," Thranduil said at last. "I believe I may stay a while."

Bard only looked at him. No doubt he could feel the ground moving beneath his feet, tugging away like a carpet, out of his control, dragging him towards something he had long ago lost the power to resist. Still, Thranduil waited. He would let Bard damn himself.

Without fail, the man cleared his throat. "Listen," Bard began hesitantly. His eyes glanced from his feet, almost shyly, as he searched for the words Thranduil could already hear. "I don't normally do this sort of thing—alright, I never do. But I want to this time."

Thranduil let the silence stretch between them. Bard finally glanced up and met his eyes. There was wariness in his gaze, the readiness to accept a rejection they both knew wouldn't come. This was a man who could survive anything. Thranduil smiled. "And are you still afraid of the dark, Bard?" he asked softly.

Bard's eyes remained locked to his. "No. Not anymore."

Thranduil smiled. "Good." With a single motion, he put his hands to Bard's chest and shoved him into the darkness of the alley.

Bard stumbled backwards with a brief exclamation, which the darkness quickly swallowed. Thranduil followed after, the little human mannerisms falling away like the sheath from a blade. His eyes immediately adjusted to the shadows, pupils blowing out far larger than they should have, eating his entire iris. Bard remained half-blind, his eyes struggling to pick out Thranduil's face.

"What are you—Hey—" Thranduil's fingers wound into the front of Bard's coat, and a moment later the man's back slammed into the brick wall of the alley. A sharp intake of breath, a sudden pressing together. Bard did not breathe another word. Thranduil did not give him the chance.  

He started slow. Their faces pressed together, noses clashing, as Thranduil's lips found Bard's. He began that strange moving of flesh, Bard's mouth warm and foreign against his own. It was only a moment before Bard returned the kiss, clumsily, uncertain not of his wants but of how to apply them. His hands fluttered with brief touches on Thranduil's shoulders, his waist, the back of his neck, never sure where to settle, always pulling him closer. Thranduil was as vicious as drowning, working his way into Bard like water into lungs. He wanted to drive into him like an axe, lay him open and burrow into the heat of his flesh. He could taste the beer that Bard had been drinking. Beneath it he could taste the blood. All he had to do was bite down, sever the delicate skin on Bard's lips, feel the eager red rush spilling onto his tongue. Bard's heart beat against him like a physical blow, pushing and withdrawing and pushing again, enough to lull him into a red haze, and let something darker come surging out…

Thranduil pulled back, dancing on the edge of control. He'd walked many alleys, turned many open kisses into open throats. This time would be different. He met the other man's eyes, saw the uncertainty dragged down beneath the current of his need, his lips parted for more. Thranduil obliged him, pressing deeper this time, Bard's mouth hot and open against his own, their bodies grinding together. He could feel the twitches and tremors in Bard's body as it tensed like the string of a violin. It was even enough to move him, his own lust a distant sensation yet steadily closing in. He ignored it for now, focusing on the man before him and all the ways he could make him break.

The first time Thranduil ground his hips against Bard's, the other man broke off from the kiss with a quiet curse, his eyes squeezed shut, his fingers digging in to Thranduil's shoulder as if to anchor himself there. Thranduil chuckled, the sound low and rich and dark, bracing one hand against Bard's neck and the other on his hip.

 "Open your eyes, Bard," he murmured. Though the man's breathing shuddered again, his lids opened. Thranduil caught his gaze and held it, watching every emotion ripple across the surface Bard's eyes, like a cat watching fish in a pond. Bard's pulse hammered against Thranduil's fingertips as he began to work, pressing his hips forward and pulling away, never once breaking his gaze. Bard's breath stopped in his throat, coming in short, desperate pants.

"I'm—uh— _ah—_ ," Bard groaned, thrusting back in that deliciously helpless way, his eyes briefly closing again as his breath hisses through his teeth.

"Look at me," Thranduil said, for the briefest moment his voice going as hard and cold as steel. Bard's eyes open without hesitation, his brows knitted. Thranduil's hands dug into Bard's flesh, raising bruises underneath his clothes. He imagined the flood of red and purple that would spider away from the places his fingers pressed. He pressed harder. "Be as loud as you like," Thranduil whispered. "There's no one around to hear."

Another groan tore from Bard's throat as Thranduil kissed him again, feeling the hardness between them even through their clothes. It was becoming more difficult to ignore the pulse of blood so near, to disregard the movement of flesh as Bard pressed and moved against him. Thranduil could hear the gristle grinding in his jaw with every harsh breath, the sockets of his joints popping as he yanked Thranduil closer, the swish of blood hurrying through his veins. Thranduil _wanted_ , wanted to tear him apart like tissue paper to get to the hot red flesh beneath. But he had learned long ago that there things more satisfying than slaking that hunger.

So instead, he slid his hand down. He moved with liquid slowness from Bard's chest to his belly and then lower, lower.  The belt and jeans were a minor obstacle. Thranduil dispensed with them quickly. He saw Bard's expression fall apart a split second before his body reacted, jolting forward with a long, low moan as Thranduil pulled him from his jeans and began to rub. His breath came in short gasps now, his hands grasping weakly at Thranduil's coat, holding on as if the world was moving under his feet. Thranduil pinned him with his silent gaze, faintly surprised by how the man's reactions were affecting him. He had seen his fair share of carnality. Yet something about this man held him captivated.

"Enjoying yourself?" Thranduil whispered.

"I—oh fuck, _fuck,_ " Bard groaned, the noises stoppered in his throat choking out. Thranduil watched him with cool satisfaction. Emotion darted across Bard's face as the man struggled to stay in control, to stay focused, to not be dragged beneath the current. Thranduil didn't give him the option of control. He could taste the desperation in Bard's voice. He moved his hand faster.

With a whimper, Bard let his head fall onto Thranduil's shoulder, fingers tangling with his pale hair.

The motion also brought Bard's neck within inches of Thranduil's lips.

As it always did in such situations, time began to slow. The red fog closed in, thick, muffling. Through it, something else moved, something hungry and mindless and _ready._ The groove running from Bard's ear down into his throat glistened with a faint sheen of sweat, jolting with every breath. It was too much to resist. Thranduil leaned in and ran his tongue along the column of Bard's neck, the hunger inside him screaming in rage and satisfaction.

"Sorry," Bard's voice, breathless and still tense with want, came from far away. Thranduil's hand had stilled, unintentionally giving the man a reprieve. "I might be a little, uh, oversensitive, I—" his voice cut off as Thranduil began on him again, dragging him closer and closer to the edge. Thranduil's face was pressed up against Bard's neck, breathing in the red haze. He could practically taste it.

"—I haven't done this in a long time," Bard managed at last, his forehead still pressed to Thranduil's shoulder.

Thranduil's lips curved into a smile, his eyes transfixed by the pulse of Bard's neck. He pressed his cheek to it, felt the flutter of it on his skin. He was sinking down, his thoughts seeping into each other, something inside of him ready to burst free. "Haven't you?" Thranduil murmured, his voice soft. "Not since your wife died?"

He could feel the other man tense, the shakiness of arousal quieting into something less comfortable. "No," Bard said after a moment, "not since then. And that's not something most people would bring up at a time like this."

Thranduil chuckled, his lips leaning up to toy with Bard's earlobe. "Tell me," he purred as Bard's breathing hitched in his chest. "Do you ever think about the fact that she would still be alive without you?"

Bard froze. A second later the man's hands came up to shove Thranduil backwards, the want and desperation on his face replaced with disbelief. "What the hell are you talking about?"  Bard whispered.

Thranduil laughed. With a single fluid motion he stepped between Bard and the exit to the alley, the rectangle of light promising safety and comfort. Bard took a step away, deeper into the darkness, fumbling himself back into his jeans. Thranduil could see the shaking of his hands. The other man was beginning to understand. Thranduil stepped after him, an empty grin still plastered on his face.

"Oh, no need to pretend with me, Bard," Thranduil said, his voice as seductive as ever as he began to close the distance. "It was your child that came tearing out of your poor wife when she died, was it not? Did she even want another child, or was it _entirely_ your doing?"

"Shut up," Bard said, his voice as taught as razor wire. Thranduil was right in his space now. Bard's eyes were sharp with pain and rage, his hands balled into fists at his side.

Thranduil smiled. "How guilty you must feel. I imagine that whelp of yours split her open from the inside like rotting fruit."

The blow came fast. It would have easily broken Thranduil's nose, sent him reeling backwards, given Bard an opening to dart past him and escape back into the light. It never landed. Thranduil caught Bard's wrist before his knuckles so much as brushed his face. Bard's eyes stared from his hand to Thranduil's face in shock. He gave Bard a patronizing smile. Then he twisted.

The man buckled. His cry of pain rang out in the alley, stirring the hunger in Thranduil's chest. He could have torn Bard's hand off. He didn't. The man stumbled backwards, clutching his sprained wrist. There was fear on him now. It lingered in the air like a mosquito whine, the high shriek of a violin, driving Thranduil forward, onward, towards him. Bard began trying to scramble backwards, his eyes darting for a sign of escape. The alley walls promised nothing but the woods waiting at their end. Bard's shouts for help were hoarse on the cold air.

Thranduil paused, waiting for their echo to die out. He fixed Bard with a knowing stare. "It sounds like we're on our own here, my friend."

With both hands he grabbed Bard by the front of his coat and slammed him back against the alley wall, nose-to-nose. Bard struggled, hands and feet searching for some kind of purchase, finding none. Thranduil was as immovable as a mountain on his chest.

"What do you want?" Bard said. His voice was remarkably level, but for the panic that came off him in waves.

Thranduil chuckled, his eyes travelling from Bard's lips to the dip at the bottom of his throat. His fingers darted out to trace the curve in the bone, follow the tendons up to the pulse point. Bard's heart lunged against Thranduil's fingertips.

He let his hand wander up to cup the side of Bard's face. The gesture was a tender one. "Still asking questions?" Bard cursed, trying to twist away. Thranduil felt his struggles like a spider testing the vibrations on its web. "You wanted to know more about me before. Have you changed your mind?"

"Listen to me," Bard said urgently, only a slight tremor in his voice. "My wallet is in my pocket. You can take whatever you want. Just let me go."

"Let you go?" Thranduil's face was blank, impassive. There was no point in feigning expressions now.  "Where will you go, Bard? Back to your empty home, your struggling business, your children always there to remind you of your wife? Don't you ever hate them?"

"Don’t you dare talk about my kids," Bard hissed, wrenching against Thranduil's grip.

"Fear not. Your children do not interest me. You, on the other hand, interest me very deeply." His fingers trailed down Bard's neck, settling lightly over his throat.

"Don't kill me." His voice broke for the first time, a shudder running through his body.

"I'm not going to kill you, Bard," Thranduil replied smoothly. "I'm going to define you." Where the man was a mess of quivering muscles and ragged breaths, Thranduil was made of stone. He wanted to take that movement inside of himself, to remember what it felt like to be alive. Yes. Yes. It was almost time. The man's breathing heaved in his chest. His eyes drifted up to the sky as if begging for divine intervention. The stars were silent. Thranduil followed his gaze, watching those distant lights with a fond eye.

"I can't remember what it felt like to enjoy the sun on my skin," Thranduil murmured. "You never do learn to stop yearning for it. Most fledglings don't last a year before they can't stand the dark any longer—they crawl out into the sunlight, and destroy themselves. They can't resist it. Our two kinds have that in common, you see. We're moths drawn in by the light."

"You're crazy," Bard said. Thranduil knew he truly believed it.

"You think so?" His fingers settled in Bard's hair with an iron grip, forcing the man's gaze into his own. "Let me show you what I really am."

He parted his lips. The feeling of his teeth extending was like the relief of a knife being pulled from his flesh. They slid out like the fangs of a viper, razor sharp. His vision bloomed red, the hunger inside him thrashing with triumph. Bard's eyes grew wide as he watched, his heart rate escalating to a dizzying rate.

"This isn't happening," he whispered. Bard was clutching at straws, holding tight to the one thing which could still save him—the dream, the illusion, thrashing awake in his own bed with nothing but the fading memory of a nightmare to haunt him. They always denied it. Right to the end.

"Allow me to help you believe," Thranduil said. His voice was as gentle as an anesthetic. With a sudden motion Thranduil wrenched the side of Bard's face against the alley wall, turning the long pale line of his neck to the light. Bard swore, fingers tearing at Thranduil's hair, feet kicking wildly. Thranduil hardly felt it. The artery was right there. He could open it up and take it all. It would be so easy to let himself. The hunger clawed in the pit of Thranduil's stomach. His tongue was a cold, dry dead thing in his mouth, teasing at the heat just below Bard's skin. If he bit, that would be the end of it. But he wouldn't end it here.

He raised his free hand. His thumbnail pressed to the side of Bard's throat, raspy now with his cries for help. Thranduil pushed harder, watched the blood gather and the bruise spider out under the pressure. A single drop of blood beaded on Bard's skin. Thranduil stared at it, transfixed.

"You will survive this." It seemed even his voice was something detached from him, weaving through the indistinct regions of his mind that weren't bent on the thirst. "You're going to walk out of this alley, drive back to your home, see your children. Likely you will try and convince yourself that this was a dream. You will not succeed in doing so."

His nail dragged a short, curved swatch of red across Bard's throat, drawing a sharp hiss of pain. The smell of blood was loosed on the air. Thranduil's head was heavy, too heavy to hold. He let it lower, nuzzling against the red gathering on Bard's skin. Oblivion beckoned him on. As soon as it touched his lips, the hot red fog descended.

The taste of blood was more of a feeling than a sensation. It touched him like the sun on frost, dissolving him into nothing. He pressed his mouth to Bard's throat, licking up the flow that rose to the surface. With every new pulse of his heart Bard's struggles grew weaker. Thranduil's mind descended into incoherency, falling apart at the seams with only a single thought to hold him together, cast in iron: _keep him alive._ He dragged his tongue over the wound, a short gasp gathering in his throat to drag in the smell. It was too much, and not enough. His breaths were ragged against Bard's ear, need twisting inside of him like a black coil of pain. With a groan, he forced his lips away. He leaned away to press his forehead to the cold brick wall, feeling the heat inside of him turn cold and dead once more. The pain closed in on him. With a snarl, Thranduil's hand raked down the wall, sending chunks of brick and mortar tumbling to the ground. It was the only loss of control he would allow himself. Bard scarcely even flinched, his labored breaths dragging in his throat.

Bard's eyes were slightly glazed, his body wracked with tremors. Thranduil fixed him with a slow, bloody smile.

"What have you done to me," Bard groaned, his eyes struggling to stay focused on Thranduil's face.

Thranduil ran his fingers over the man's eyelids, felt them flutter and convulse beneath him. "How do you feel? Dizzy? Tired? Disoriented?" He turned Bard's head with two fingers, watched as if nodded bonelessly. "Merely side effects of feeding. Soon, you will feel as if nothing happened. But you will remember that it did." He seized Bard's face with one hand. With the other, he ran his fingers over the blood smearing the man's neck, tracing the small, curved wound already beginning to heal. It would be a scar by morning—such was the nature of any wound he might inflict. Inside, the hunger keened and raged. If he stayed much longer he wouldn't be able to stop himself.

"Think of this as mark," Thranduil murmured, " _of ownership_. No matter how far you might try to run, I will be able to find you. No matter how long you go, never doubt that I will come for you. It may be tomorrow—it may be ten years from now. But I will come. This is your lot now, Bard. To wait. Don't forget what for." He let the hand fall away, took one last deep inhale. He would remember this moment. When he stepped back, the man's warmth peeled away from him like blankets on a cold, dark night. Bard slumped slightly against the wall, his head wobbling on his neck as he struggled to keep Thranduil in sight.

"What are you?" he whispered.

Thranduil smiled at him with hungry affection. "I think you know."

The man's expression crumbled, fear and disbelief contorting his features. Thranduil drifted further away, back forwards the opening of the alley, the electric buzz of streetlights and their sickly orange light.

"Don't fear the dark, Bard," he said gently. "It's the light that draws the moth, after all." He left him then, the ragged gasps of Bard's breath following Thranduil as he stepped back onto the sidewalk. The cold was returning this body, a painful stillness settling over his limbs. Thranduil dragged the back of his hand over his mouth to wipe the blood away, then licked the red smear off his skin. The hunger howled in his chest, rising up to fill him with darkness that pulsed in his muscles like something moving beneath his skin, crying for release.

His car was waiting for him, the lights and noise of the bar a sore on the black of the night. Someone leaned on the wall outside, an anonymous face that Thranduil did not see. They held a cigarette in their hands, looking around with a look of idle boredom Thranduil knew well. He approached them with a smile and a promise in his eyes perfected by the centuries. It didn't fail him.

Thranduil drove them well into the woods before he began to feed, the action as quick and mechanical as it was satisfying. As the hot blood filled him and drowned the thirst in red, it was Bard he thought of. The hardness in his eyes. The soft edge on his smile. The reek of his fear. In his mind Thranduil was back in the alley with Bard's neck pressed to his face, and this time he didn't stop. He bit deep, teeth grinding against the bone as he squeezed his eyes shut and let the bloodlust take him. His arms squeezed tighter in ecstasy, feeling piece snap inside, feeling nothing, thoughts racing, needing more, always _more—_

When the flow of blood finally trickled away Thranduil tore himself away with a keening cry. He didn't want to stop. It felt too good. He stared at the mess in front of him with half-closed eyes, feeling the blood surging in his own body, heat and motion inside of him. The remains he tossed aside, leaning his head back against the tree he had collapsed against and pressed a hand to his chest. It felt warm. Inside there were the stirrings of life. They would not last for long, but just for a moment, he could pretend.

Above him, the stars held vigil. He grinned up at them, an empty expression, dragging in deep breaths of the night air to steady himself. He wondered where Bard was right now. Perhaps he had called the police, or stumbled back into the bar with tales of a monster out in the night. Perhaps he had just gone home. The thrill was in not knowing.  

Thranduil closed his eyes, the slow, lazy feeling of being sated washing over him in waves. Alone in the woods, he began to laugh.

He couldn't wait to see what Bard would do next.  


	4. Chapter 4

Bard stared at the clock. It was a family heirloom. It had been his wife's grandmother's, a tall stately thing, cherry paneling with a dark wash, cream-colored face, and a long brass pendant which swung, back and forth, incessantly, until it was wound. It stood in the front hallway, next to a chair which faced the front door. It was likely the most valuable piece of furniture in Bard's entire house. Right now, his eyes were fixated on it. The hands drifted on aimlessly, the second hand twitching with each little _tick_ , constantly moving yet going nowhere. Bard wanted to make it stop. He could hear the noise from anywhere in the house, beating into him like the steady tap of a hammer, painless at first but soon raising an agonizing bruise. He lay in bed every night just listening to it, so quiet it was barely there—but it _was_ there. Bard was good with his hands when it came to cars, but he didn't know the first thing about clocks. He wanted quiet. He didn't want to break it. But he would if he had to.

"Da, what are you doing to the clock?"

Bard jumped, his muscles immediately tensing. It was only Tilda, watching him prodding at the clocks innards. Her eyes moved from his face to his hands, which trembled ever so slightly as he lowered them from the clock. They did that quite often these days.

"Nothing, darling," he said with a weak smile, tousling her hair and closing the glass panel on the front of the clock. The ticking continued. "I was just fixing it."

"I didn't know it was broken," Tilda said with a slight frown.

"Where's your brother?" Bard said instead of answering. He rose to his feet, muscles groaning. Most days he felt as if he had run a marathon just from getting out of bed. He hadn't been sleeping well. If at all.

"He's in his room," Tilda said. "He said he wasn’t going. I don’t want to go either.”

Bard leaned down to put his hands on her shoulders. He hoped she couldn't feel them shaking. "It's what's best for you now, sweet. Don't you want to see your grandma?"

"Yes…" Tilda said hesitantly. "But I don't like going over all the time. I want to stay home."

"You can't right now," Bard said as gently as he could. He pulled her into a hug which she didn't return. "It's just for the weekends."

"Sigrid doesn't have to go."

"Sigrid has rehearsals."

"Well, it's not fair!" Tilda cried, squirming out of his arms and scampering down the hallway to her room. He heard the door close quietly behind her—he'd always told her not to slam it. Even angry, she still followed the rules—she would go, even if she didn't want to. He didn’t need her to understand.

There was not a lot that Bard was sure of these days. He knew he needed to keep his children away from him, as often as possible. He knew that someone was watching his house. He had only one guess as to who. He had seen someone out in the woods, just beyond the reach of the house's external lights—a shadow on a lighter shadow. Bard called the police every time, though he never expected them to find anything. They were an insurance policy. A guarantee that for the time it took for the officers to search the nearby woods, nothing bad could happen. It started taking longer and longer for them to show up, their concern quickly turning to exasperation and then suspicion. He wouldn’t stop calling them. He’d make them see.

There had been other signs, too. Little things that could easily go ignored by anyone who chose to. Tilda found a rabbit ripped apart in the back yard. Everyone told Bard it had been a fox. Maybe it had. He didn't know anymore. It had been almost a month since— _no. Don't think about it. It never really happened._

He glanced out the window. The sun was swimming in gold, beginning its red descent to the horizon. He guessed they had about an hour before dusk. With that in mind, Bard set off to talk to his son.

He paused outside of the open doorway. Bain was sitting in the dark room at his computer, an empty suitcase open on his bed. He hadn't even started packing, and his grandmother would be here any moment. If he waited too long then they wouldn't begin driving until nightfall. That couldn't happen.

"Bain, you need to pack," Bard said from the door.

Bain glanced up from his computer. "I'm not going."

"Bain…"

"Da, this is crazy!" he cried, tension snapping in his voice. "You're sending us away all the time and you won't even tell us why!"

"I need you to trust me."

"You mean you need us to just do what you say without asking questions?” Bain raised his eyebrows. “You’ve been acting weird for a whole month. If something's wrong I want to help."

"There's nothing you can do!" Bard snapped. He caught himself a moment later. "And there's nothing wrong. Now pack your things. That's final."

He switched on the light switch in Bain's room and walked away before Bain could argue. As he started down the stairs, he paused as Sigrid walked past him. She shot him a look, just before disappearing into Bain’s room. He heard their tense voices from the other side of the door. Bard waited on the stairs until Sigrid walked out again, giving him a slight nod before turning to go to her room. The relief he felt was mixed with guilt.

Their grandmother arrived at five, and both Bain and Tilda were begrudgingly ready to leave a few minutes after. Bain didn’t so much as look at Bard as he loaded his things into the back of their grandmother’s SUV and slumped in the passenger seat. The adults exchanged only pleasantries, no questions. Bard had already made it clear that he wouldn’t be answering them. He waited in the doorway as they all drove away, his hand gripping the door knob as if it was the last thing holding him from the edge of a cliff.

Sunset would come very soon—the sky had become bloated with reds and oranges. Bard watched it from his window before pulling the shade. Somewhere the clock ticked. The growing night disappeared from his view.

His life had become entwined with the sun. He woke at dawn, went to work as soon as it was bright enough. As autumn mouldered into winter the days were growing shorter, but he wouldn’t risk driving at night. He was home before the sun began to set. That was when his vigil began, and he stood it alone. Even as he tucked Tilda into bed and told Bain to stop playing video games, he was by himself in a way human company couldn’t affect. His mind walked a different path from his body, as if he were wandering through a stage where his children were only props. Each evening he would pace through the house and turn on every light. They stayed on until dawn, filling the rooms with artificial day. His electric bills were going to be hell, but he didn't care. He moved through his own house like an intruder, feet falling softly, muscles tight. Details leapt out at him, each one demanding attention—the world had become sharp at its edges. The lights helped a little. But not enough.

He set to his routines now, switches on, curtains down, sealing the light inside. The light was a physical thing plastered against his skin like sweat-soaked sheets. Even with all of the windows blocked he could feel the darkness outside. The house was holding its breath, the silence ballooning around him and waiting for a pin to burst it.

The lights and curtains done, Bard sunk into a chair in the living room. From the hallway outside, the clock continued chipping away at time. Every sound felt as if someone was tapping the inside of his skull, sending rattles and tremors deep into his brain. It had been like this ever since—that night. His mind tripped over the memory, the words to define it. He had told no one what had happened to him in the alley. He’d fed the police a version of the truth: they knew that a man had attacked him in the alley, had threatened to come after him again. That this man knew where he lived, and where he worked, and that he had children—Bard squeezed his eyes shut, jaws clamping shut to stop his breath from coming too quickly. He hadn’t told them about the long teeth in the dark. Even he couldn’t be sure it had really happened. Real and not-real had become hazy concepts to him. All he knew is that he had to be ready.

Bard had never been more afraid than the day his wife died, a bone-deep horror squatting in his bones that seemed to make his body something other than his own. There had been nothing he could do except sit in the uncomfortable hospital chair, paralyzed, waiting for the news that part of him had already accepted. And that was the worst part—that he accepted it. There was nothing to do except admit that part of himself had been blown away. Yes, he had known fear. But not like this. This fear was outside of himself, waiting around every corner, yet scuttling away as soon as he tried to look at it. It lived in the walls, in the woods, in the noises that came from the attic at night. His body seemed to vibrate, every touch white-hot or freezing cold. This time he wasn’t waiting for news. He was fighting for his life, every day, every hour. But his body couldn’t fight forever.

"Da, I'm going out!"

Sigrid's voice rang through the house, jolting Bard from his stupor. Where was she going? Rehearsal, his brain supplied. She was a part of the school play. _Macbeth_ , or maybe _Hamlet_. His eyes trailed to the window, the shades seeming to bulge inward with the weight of the darkness they held back. It was night now. It wasn’t safe.

"Wait," he called back, quickly climbing to his feet and rubbing a hand over his face. He heard the front door open. "Sigrid, I said wait!" he yelled, hurrying through the house. Panic rose in his throat until he saw her still standing in the doorway, a look of exasperation on her face.

"Da, are you really going to do this every time?" she said.

Bard struggled to get his anxiety under control before he spoke. "You can’t just go storming off like that.”

“I’m just going to rehearsal,” she protested. “It’s no big deal.”

“It’s dark out, Sig. You need to be careful.” She only rolled her eyes. His hands reached out to shake her shoulders, his mouth opened to scream that she didn’t know what was out there, but like the slowness of a dream he only settled his palms on her shoulders and calmly began to speak. “Now. Cell phone?" Sigrid nodded. "Whistle?" She hoisted it on her key chain with a pointed quirk of her eyebrow. "Pepper spray?"

"Ugh, yes, da, I have it all," she groaned. "I'm just waiting for the day when you buy me a gun to keep under my pillow."

Bard stared at his daughter, eyes desperately latched onto her face as if he could memorize it in the span of a few seconds. She glanced between him and the door, her eyes imploring. "Can I please go now? I’m going to be late."

Bard smiled at her and pulled her into a hug that lasted too long and gripped too tight. "Yes. Of course." He pulled back and cupped her cheek. "Break a leg. And please, be careful."

Sigrid smiled wryly. "Don't worry, I'll be sure to avoid any bodies of water. The whole Ophelia thing, and all."

Bard’s smile seemed cracked around the edges, more painful than happy. “Right. …I love you.”

Sigrid looked at him strangely. “I love you too, dad. Are you going to be okay here alone?”

Bard nodded. “I’ll be fine as long as you are.”

Sigrid nodded. “It’s a deal.” She flounced off onto the porch and towards the waiting car, stopping only to wave him goodbye before ducking into the car. Bard waited from just inside the house, a cold pit in his stomach. He knew he couldn't keep her in here forever. To be honest, he wasn't sure where the real danger truly lay. Maybe there really wasn't anything out there. The taillights bathed the street behind them red as the car sped away, leaving Bard alone in the empty house.

He shut the door, locked it. Keep it all out. That was key.

But when he went to wash his face, the scar was waiting. Curved like a crooked smile, it crossed three inches of the side of his neck in a thin pale line. It was only noticeable if you knew to look for it—Bard couldn't keep his eyes away. Whenever he passed his reflection his gaze was drawn to it instantly, like a puppet helplessly twitching on a string.

He leaned forward on the edge of the sink, water dripping down the tip of his nose. It was a different face than he might have seen in his rear view mirror that night a month ago. The bags under his eyes were deeper, the cast of his skin feverish. At night his mind crawled over the walls and left his body beaten and empty inside. Sigrid might joke, but she didn't know Bard had been sleeping with a loaded gun tucked into his mattress for the past twenty nine days.

Bard dragged a hand over his face, felt the roughness. He should shave. The thought of the razor nicking into his skin was enough to deter him for another night. Instead he walked through hallways as flooded with light, drifting aimlessly from room to room, standing on the threshold of each before moving on. Being alone in the house had been harder in the beginning. The first weekend he had sent the kids away he hadn’t slept at all, propped up in the hallway outside their rooms until the sky brightened. It was worth it if it kept them a little safer. He wasn't sure whether the best way to protect them was by keeping them close, or by getting them as far away from him as possible. If it were up to him, he would have picked up and moved across the country three weeks ago. Maybe if he'd had more clients, if he'd saved up more money. In a few years he might have enough. By then it might not matter anymore.

He leaned on the door frame to his room. The bed was sloppily made, the curtains drawn. His eyes lingered on the bottom drawer of his dresser. It was a cheap, crappy thing he'd picked up from the side of the road; the handles had kept falling off until he'd nailed them back in place. In the bottom drawer underneath his extra shirts and socks, was a half-full bottle of whiskey. The first half had disappeared in the weeks after his wife died. He wanted the rest now. God, he wanted it. Wanted to feel his problems taken out of his own hands, put them in someone else's for a change. Every night he came a little closer. He was worried that if he did, he wouldn't be able to stop.

So he forced himself away, made himself sit in the living room and turn on the TV, picking a channel, any channel. He could have stared at static with the same effect. Tinny laughter rang in his ears and failed to puncture his brain. It felt so far removed from his own reality that it was almost as if he was dreaming. He didn't fall unconscious. His real dreams were much less pleasant.  As he stared off into space his fingers toyed with something around his neck. A silver cross on a silver chain hung under his shirt, tiny and unassuming yet a small piece of comfort all the same. It had been his wife's, and he hadn't so much as looked at it in the years since she had worn it. He couldn't bring himself to believe what he had seen in the alley, but he needed the cross—as protection, or perhaps as a reminder. It sat on his chest like a brand. For all the comfort it might offer, it was also a painful reminder. After he'd been made a widower he had thought he could never desire another person again. She'd been the love of his life. He hadn't wanted anyone else. Until he met that strange man with the glinting eyes who made him feel something dark and red he had thought wasn't in him anymore. Was he really that shallow? Was an attractive face all it took to make him stop asking whether what he was doing was right? It had felt right. It had felt good. He didn't want to think about feeling good right now.

Bard let his hands cover his face, breath hissing out past his palms. He'd been so selfish. He'd gone into that alley of his own free will, he'd _wanted_ to for the love of God—his fingers pressed his eyes, trying to block the images out, but they wouldn't be stemmed. He was like a wild animal running between a wildfire and the edge of a cliff. Memories of Thranduil's hands on him chased him into deeper corners, filled with empty eyes and long, sharp teeth. But no, that wasn't real. He had to remember that it wasn't real, because the mind could invent all sorts of details to reject its own reality. He'd been attacked. That was all there was. And if the wound on his neck had healed before he even made it to the mirror, if he stayed up on Google too late at night and it brought him to conclusions he didn't want to reach— _no._ He swore, a sharp burst of sound against the babbling backdrop of the television.

 The noise shook him out of his stupor, and in an instant he was on his feet.  He started pacing the room, feeling like a caged animal. His neck itched, his fingernails gouged at it viciously. The restless fear drove him out of the room to walk the hallways, eyes darting from room to room. This couldn't be the world he lived in. It was better to forget, to ignore, than admit that the ground had opened up under his feet. He was sinking down beneath it now, watching his children and his life and his sanity disappear over his head. He could feel that earthy darkness inside himself. He needed to fill it up.

He was in front of his dresser before he could have explained how he had gotten there, his knees hard on the wooden floor, hands fumbling past the socks to find the whiskey underneath. The cool touch on his fingers was like a gasp of relief. He was alone. He needed relief. Why shouldn’t he? He unscrewed the top, leaned his back against the dresser, and began to drink.

Time quickly slipped away from him then, away, further away. He drove it further with every gulp, fighting down nausea at the sharp burn on his tongue. It was better than the memory of other tastes, the different twisting in his stomach he was still trying to forget. He felt soiled, touched by something that had left an oily mark on his skin. If water wouldn’t wash it away then maybe something stronger would.

It might have been hours later when the buzz of his phone jolted him from his stupor. His mind had been blissfully blank until the buzzing against his thigh brought his body to life again. Eyes bleary, he pawed at the screen until the message appeared beside Sigrid's name:

_hey da, dont flip out but im gonna stay the night at haley's house so we can practice our lines. I promise im okay and ill be back tomorrow. love you_

Bard stared at it a long time. Thoughts were coming too slowly now. The fear was already here. Sigrid had to come back. It wasn't safe out there—she had to come back. He staggered to his feet, narrowly avoiding the still-open bottle of whiskey on the floor. If Sigrid was hurt, if she needed help— _he_ could have her. She could be dead. Bard stumbled for the door to his bedroom, trying to clamp down on a room which spun on its axis around him. He had to go to her. Just to make sure she was okay. He stopped in the doorway, leaning on the frame for a long time. But in case she wasn’t, if she wasn’t, he needed something. He knew where it was. His hands groped underneath his mattress, fingers brushing cold metal. The gun was in his hands, looking smaller than he remembered. It would have to do.

The hallway pressed him onward, his hands struggling with his coat, the keys to his car cold in his clammy hands. The gun went into the pocket on the third try. His whole body was shaking. _You shouldn't be driving_ , a voice whispered in the back of his head. It didn’t matter. His hands found the door, and then he was outside. The world bent and warped around him, his eyes struggling to stay focused on any one point. Behind him the house was a dark shape, slits of light sliding out from around the closed blinds to pattern it with ghostly squares. It seemed to be unmoored from the earth, floating silently in its own darkness. The door was still open, calling him back. He debated on going back to close it, but there wasn’t time.

He staggered over to his car, opened the door, slid inside. It was only when he was sitting behind the wheel that he realized he didn’t know where Haley lived. That didn’t matter now. He just had to go. The keys jammed into the ignition after a minute of blind probing. He gave them a twist. The engine stayed still and dead, but maybe he wasn’t doing it right, there wasn’t _time_ and he couldn’t remember—Bard twisted the key again, again, frustration rising in his chest. He pitched forward to lean his head on the steering wheel, the cold feeling bringing him some form of clarity. The engine. He should go take a look at the engine.

Getting out of the car was more difficult than getting in—he had to lean on the door and nearly closed his fingers inside it, but he managed to guide himself along the body of the car and pop open the hood. He stood there staring blankly at it, the darkness barely illuminated by the light from his house. His mind grasped for the knowledge he knew was there, the clear-cut information he used every day at work seeming to dart and twist out of his grasp.

"This might be what you're looking for."

The hood of the car fell from his hand and closed with a deafening bang. As it closed, the figure leaning on the other side of the car was revealed. His pale blonde hair had been pulled back at the nape of his neck, the car's relay box held loosely in his hand. "I don't think you're in a proper state to drive, Bard."

Bard's legs were working before he himself was aware of it, backing him towards the house. Bard’s lips moved without speaking—there was no air in his lungs. He could hardly feel his own body; he seemed to be floating away, Thranduil watching him with a small smile. The mask he had been showing to Bard was gone now. There was no compassion, no humanity—just the pointed interest of a cat watching a bird. If Bard hadn't sensed what the man was before, now there was no doubt. His conscious mind was gone. All that was left was one word: run.

The backs of his ankles hit the front stoop with a jolt of pain that snapped him back to reality. Instantly he turned and sprinted up the short wooden steps, his vision tilting. He stumbled through the front door, hands struggling to slam it closed without stopping. All that mattered was to get away. He twisted over his shoulder just as his feet tangled up beneath him, sending him sprawling on the floor. He landed hard, the breath knocked from his body for a moment. He struggled to drag himself a few paces, away to get his limbs underneath him again—and that was when he remembered the gun in his coat pocket. His hands grasped for it numbly, closing over the cold metal and fitting over the trigger. He rolled on his back, raising it with an unsteady hand just as Thranduil appeared in the doorway. Bard scrambled backwards with one hand still holding the gun, his breath strangled in his throat—yet Thranduil made no move to enter.

"Don't move," Bard croaked. "One more step and I shoot."

Thranduil paid him little mind. He merely stood there, a dark shadow against the lights of the house, watching Bard impassively.

Something made Bard stop then, some tiny flicker of a realization fighting through the fog in his brain. The rational part of him was still laboring under the effects of the whiskey. The part of him that had always believed—from the moment Thranduil had shown him his fangs—was in control now. Thranduil tilted his head, his eyes traveling over the door frame, a hand reaching up to touch—but without crossing the threshold.

Bard's voice found him again at last. "You can't get in," he said. "You need an invitation."

Thranduil smiled at him coldly. "I see you've been doing your research." His voice contained no more humanity than the bark of a dog.

Bard scrambled to his feet, leaning on the wall for support when his limbs tried to go the wrong direction, holding the gun in front of him like a shield. He stood as still as a deer in the headlights, torn between the urge to flee and not wanting to let Thranduil out of his sight.

Thranduil eyed the gun with distaste. "Are you going to shoot me, Bard?"

"I will if I have to."

"I'm unarmed."

Bard said nothing. It hadn’t mattered last time.

Thranduil shrugged. "Very well. Put a round in my chest, see what good it does. But I'm only concerned that poor sweet Ms. Jameson next door would hear the gunshot and call the police, and by the time they arrived I would be long gone. A single father drunk and firing a handgun inside his own house—you have to admit, that doesn’t look good.”

“I’ll tell them you were here,” Bard said.

“What will you tell them? That a vampire was in your house?” It was the first time that the world passed between them. Bard wasn’t sure whether the emotion tunneling up through his chest wanted to become a laugh or a sob.

This might have been the first time Bard had seen Thranduil in full light. He’d been surrounded in darkness before—the passing shadows of the car dragging over his face. The harsh street lamps dividing the man's face. The smoky light of the bar. It seemed as if the more Bard saw of him, the less real he became. But no, that wasn’t right—he didn’t become less real, he became more of something else. A type of unreality that imposed itself on the world, dark and impenetrable. Whatever mask Thranduil had worn, the flickers of kindness and understanding, had fallen away, leaving nothing but a blank facade. But Bard could articulate none of those primal thoughts shifting in his mind. All he could do was shake his head.

Thranduil watched him. “Don’t you believe in monsters?”

“I believe in monsters,” Bard said. “The human kind.”

Thranduil smiled. “Yes, your kind have demons of their own. But they are nothing compared to me.”

Something in the way he said it made a part of Bard believe it. He should shoot him. End it here. Bard had never killed anyone before, had never felt the desire to—even now, his hands rebelled against him.

So instead, Bard spoke. "You've been watching me."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"To see what you would do."

"Why are you here?" Bard said, his voice hoarse. "To kill me?"

"If I wanted you dead, I would have simply let you drive."

"Then what do you want?"

Thranduil stared at him dispassionately. “You needn’t worry. I’ve already eaten.” He shifted his body so he was leaning against the door frame, ignoring the gun still pointed at him in Bard's shaking hands.

"You disappoint me, Bard. The paranoia, the alcohol, the desperate bid to protect your children—I admit, I enjoyed it at first, but I didn't expect you to be so very _typical._ If I wanted to see terror, I could have chosen anyone."

"Maybe you chose wrong,” Bard said.

Thranduil looked at him thoughtfully, a small smile crossing his lips. "I wonder," he mused. "It is possible I chose the wrong generation. If you won't play, do you think your children will? Sigrid is such a gentle girl, but there's steel in her. Even I can see it. Maybe I will pay her a visit tonight, at her friend's house on Hickory Lane, and find out for myself."

Fear knotted an icy ball into Bard’s heart. "Stay away from my children," he said, trying to ignore the way the barrel of the gun was moving in tiny circles with the trembling in his hands. How many shots, how many bullets—he couldn’t remember.

“And of course there’s also Bain. So stubborn for his age, isn’t he? Brave, too. And Tilda, so bright. They’re all young, of course, but I’ve lived for centuries. I’m willing to give it the time. A decade or two is nothing to me. I’m patient. I can wait.”

“I swear, if you don’t shut up—” Bard gritted out past teeth so tight they might shatter. It seemed as if the outline of the room was wavering in front of his eyes. The tension of the past month was boiling over in his head. Bard was frozen, his hands unresponsive. Pull the trigger, part of him said. Drop the gun, said the other. He couldn't look away from Thranduil's eyes. Memory bloomed, of those eyes piercing into him from across the smoky table of the bar, of them hovering inches from his own as Bard slowly fell apart—sweat broke out on his forehead, his breath coming in erratic gasps. It was as if the room was squeezing in to crush him, leaving nothing but those two blue eyes.

Thranduil stared at him. "Is that a threat, Bard? Are you going to shoot me?"

"I will if I have to."

"You aren't a murderer, Bard. Although you could be. You could be so much." His eyes moved from the gun to Bard's face distastefully. "Perhaps you were right. Perhaps I chose poorly, and there's nothing left for you to give me." He leaned forward ever so slightly, his eyes glinting. "Perhaps I ought to come inside and tear the ribs out of your body, one by one."

Bard's hands tightened on the gun. "You can't get in," he whispered. "No invitation."

Thranduil sighed. "You really don't remember, do you?"

"Remember what?"

"'Would the mystery stranger like to come inside for a thank-you drink?'" Bard froze at the sound of his own words quoted back to him. His mouth went as dry as bone, the triumph evaporating. That had been over a month ago. Before he had known. Thranduil's smile widened.

"Once you let me in, I'm here for as long as I want." With one single long stride, Thranduil crossed the threshold into the house.

The world seemed to collapse around him, stretching out like a tunnel into a single pinpoint of Thranduil's eyes, and the fact that there was absolutely nothing stopping him from—

The gun jolted in Bard's hand before he was even aware of pulling the trigger, bucking like something living as the shot shattered the air. When his eyes could focus again, a hole had opened up in the front of the other man’s shirt. Thranduil stumbled backwards, a single step, his chin tilted towards to stare at the tiny little circle, no thicker than a finger. As Bard looked on a tiny dribble of blood flowed out of it, black and thick as pitch. Thranduil stood there suspended, motionless. And then he looked up.

"I suppose that was necessary," he said. He took another step.

The gun jolted in Bard's hand again, and again, his finger working the trigger and filling the room with noise until there was nothing left but an empty click. The force of the shots had carried Thranduil's body up against the door frame and propped it up, one of the shots biting into the plaster of the walls and another splintering the door. The rest had landed. Thranduil hadn't made so much as a grunt of pain as the metal pierced his body—now his hands covered the mess his chest had become, his face hidden by the fringe of his hair. Bard waited, the gun falling from numb fingers. He didn't have any more bullets. There was nowhere to run to.

"That hurt." His voice sounded thick, tense. When Thranduil's neck tilted back his eyes were dark with pain. When he took his hand away, it was smeared with more of that thick, black blood. It dripped down the front of his shirt—he wiped more of it there absentmindedly, a look of distaste on his face.

Bard was frozen in place. Thranduil began to walk towards him, taking his time. He came to a stop just a few feet in front of him, and Bard's eyes were torn between the black messy wound on Thranduil's chest and those two deadly eyes.

"Your neighbors almost certainly heard that racket," he chided. "We won't have long before the police arrive." His eyes turned to the gun on the floor—he stooped to pick it up, inspecting it with an idle eye before tucking it into his pocket.

"For your future reference," he said dryly, "my kind cannot be killed with bullets. A wooden stake will suffice, or decapitation, as well as being exposed to sunlight. But otherwise, my friend, you had best save your bullets. But I must warn you, if you attempt to kill me again, I will not be so easily forgiving. There will be consequences."

Bard's muscles shook like leaves in a cold wind, ready to scatter. His voice came out strangled. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Just in case," Thranduil replied. "It seems only fair to give you a more equal advantage."

Bard shook his head in disbelief. "Is that what you want? To die?"

"Die?" Thranduil echoed. He shook his head ruefully. "No. I want to live. But I will take the next best substitute all the same." His eyes scanned Bard like an old woman at the meat counter. "You haven’t been taking care of yourself very well. Yet even wan and drawn, your skin is beautiful."

His long fingers reached up as slowly as a rearing cobra, brushing across Bard's cheek with a cool, light touch. Bard slapped the hand away a split-second later, his teeth gritted.

"Don't touch me," he said.

Thranduil chuckled. "That wasn't what you were saying back in the alley."

Memory flared again before he could fight it down. Hot breaths, his hands in Thranduil's coat, cries of pleasure and then fear and pain—it was all bound up together in Bard's head, the good and the unimaginable. He didn't want any of it. Even if part of him had, if part of him did—he clamped down that line of thought. "That was before I knew what you were."

"Oh, you knew, Bard. Don't pretend that you didn't. From the moment you get into the car a part of you realized exactly what I was. You were drawn to me as much as I was drawn to you."

“You’re wrong,” Bad whispered, his voice sounding weak even to himself. “You sicken me.”

Thranduil stared at him. The ticking of the grandfather clock filled up the silence. Before Bard could react Thranduil had him by the shoulders and slammed his back into the clock, the glass shattering under his weight, the chimes inside squawking dissonantly. Bard’s coat protected him from the glass, but the back of his head hit it hard.  There was no amusement in Thranduil’s face now—only cruelty. He smelled like pine and dark earth.

“You should show me some respect,” Thranduil murmured, their faces inches apart. “I could kill you right now, if I wanted to.” His eyes shifted behind Bard’s eye, and one hand reached up to pluck the second hand from its struggles trapped behind Bard’s head. He held it an inch away from Bard’s eyeball, his face completely expressionless. The spike was too close for Bard’s eye to focus on, a grey smear on his vision, its edged deceptively blurred. “Perhaps I should. If all you can offer me is a painful death, there’s little use in postponing it.”

Bard’s mind struggled to get traction, to find the words that might save him. He felt the tip of the metal tine touch his eyelashes. He could imagine what it would feel like pushing into the flesh of his eye, inside of his pupil, pressing deeper to twirl his brain like spaghetti around a fork—“If that was what you wanted, I would already be dead,” he managed.

Thranduil sighed. “You are right. I could have killed you at any point, especially after you proved to be so predictable. Yet something holds me back even now.” The metal spike lowered from his eye, trailing down his cheek to rest at the spot on his neck where Bard knew his scar was. The skin there prickled under Thranduil’s hungry gaze. “Do you know how intoxicating you tasted?” he murmured. “Even as sated as I am now, I find I can scarcely resist.” The pressure on his throat increased, a pinpoint of pain driving into his jugular. “But now you reek of liquor. And cowardice.”

“Then kill me,” Bard said. “Kill me, leave town, and don’t look back.”

Thranduil tilted his head. His hands were still gripping his shoulders, but he wasn't holding Bard there and Bard wasn't pulling away. He met Thranduil’s gaze. There was no hint of mercy there.

“You would be the kind to make the sacrifice play,” Thranduil said, sounding almost irritated. “But I suppose there may be some surprises left in you yet.” The clock’s hand pinged against the floor, falling from Thranduil’s fingers. “I have yet to choose the wrong person for the game. There is time left to make that determination.”

His eyes flicked to Bard’s neck, his fingers trailing up to brush the scar there. Bard’s body jolted at the contact, the skin on his neck prickling like a lake in the rain. Something coiled in his abdomen, striking the chords for fear and hitting something darker and redder instead. Thranduil’s fingers were gone a moment later, the feeling they brought all too easy to forget and ignore. He hadn’t felt it at all. He hadn’t even thought to tell him not to touch him again.

Thranduil tilted his head, listening to something Bard couldn't hear. “The police are almost here,” he murmured. “What will you tell them, I wonder?”

The words left an icy pit in Bard’s stomach as Thranduil pulled away. He gave Bard’s shirt a straighten as if Bard were nothing more than a mannequin. “I’ll let myself out the back, shall I?” The cold, predatory expression on his face had been replaced once again with the subtle charm, the enigmatic smile, the gleam in his eyes promising something Bard didn’t want to know. “Until next time, Bard. I won’t keep you waiting for long.”

Bard watched his receding back as he walked down the hall, turning into the kitchen and out of sight. A moment later he heard the door click closed, and the house was drenched in a thick, impenetrable silence. The paralysis which had closed over him lifted, and Bard hurried after the sound into the kitchen. It was as ordinary as it had always been. There was no mark on it, no feeling in the air, that would suggest something terrible had passed through seconds before. Only the tremor in his hands. Bard could feel his heart pounding in his body, the adrenaline that had carried him through the past few minutes crumbling like ash. The strength in his body dissolved, leaving him slumped against the kitchen counter, struggling just to stay vertical. No thoughts would come to his mind. He was purged on the inside.

A moment later, a knock sounded on the door.

Bard nearly stumbled in his to answer it. As he made his way into the hallway he saw two policemen standing in his doorway, peering past the open door with their eyebrows raised. Vaguely Bard recognized them as Braga and Irene. He had thought he’d be relieved to see another human face. He felt nothing but the tension in his muscles. He tried to fake a smile, to say some inoffensive to assuage their concerns. All he could do was stand in the doorway, silent and unsmiling.

“Evening, Bard,” Irene said. “How are you?”

For a moment Bard couldn’t find words. They were buried under the dregs of terror, the jumble of his thoughts caving in under their own weight. He had to dig through them with shaking hands to find the sentences he needed at last. The officers watched him with poorly veiled wariness.

“Fine, fine,” Bard said at last. “What can I do for you?”

Braga’s laughed. Irene didn’t. “Funny, normally it’s us asking you that question. Well, we received a call that gunshots were heard from somewhere on this street in the past half hour. Do know anything about that?”

“Gunshots?” Bard said weakly. “No, I don’t think so.” They were standing just outside the door. Any further in, and they would be able to see the impact marks on the inner wall. He was careful not to look at them, not even a glance.

 “Well, that’s odd. I could swear I smell the smoke of a recent firearms discharge right in here.” Braga’s eyes traveled over the hallway behind him, taking in the shattered clock. “In fact, it looks like there might have been a bit of a tussle in here. Or was it just you against the clock?”

“No,” Bard said too quickly. “No, no one was here.”

Braga paused to give him time to speak. Irene’s eyes roved around the room, catching on the drops of something too dark to be blood on the floor. “Accidentally burned dinner tonight, maybe?” Braga suggested.

Bard couldn’t connect the sentence back to reality. “What?”

Braga looked around pointedly. “The smell of smoke. If you haven’t been firing a gun in here then I’m not sure what else it could be.”

Bard nodded emphatically. “Right. Of course. Yes, I burned dinner. Nearly set off the fire alarm.”

Braga looped his thumbs into his belt loops. “Oh yeah? What were you having?”

“Hmm?”

“For dinner.”

Bard stared at him blankly. The innocuous smile had disappeared from the officers’ faces. They looked at Bard as if he were a ticking package in an airport. Irene leaned in. “Bard, have you been drinking?”

“Braga, listen, I—I can’t do this right now,” Bard said, the words coming in a rush. “It’s not a good time.”

Braga shook his head. “No worries, Bard. As long as everything alright here. Oh, and one more question: where are your kids?”

It was too pointed for Bard to ignore the undertone. “Sigrid is staying at a friend’s house,” he said. “Tilda and Bain are with their grandmother for the weekend.”

“Can you verify that?” Braga asked casually.

“Are you asking me to?” Bard said.

Braga was silent. “Tell you what,” he said. “We’ll have someone stop by on Monday just to check that everything is okay. Want to make sure folks stay safe around here.” The pointed look he gave Bard couldn’t be ignored, but Bard had nothing to say. Both officers tipped their caps, Irene’s eyes roving over the house before turning away. Their patrol car’s lights flashed blue and red over Bard’s lawn until they drove away. He closed the door behind them and quietly locked it. Then he slumped to the floor with his back to the door, letting his head fall into his hands. He didn’t cry. He was scarcely even conscious. A month of tension and fear hit him like the front of a bus, and he buckled beneath it. His mind drifted away, leaving him stranded on the patch of floor he could see through his fingers. The wood was smooth, scuffed dark with years of dragging feet out the door. He wandered out with those memories, into something dark and oblivious for a while. But inside of him, something was hardening.

One thing was now horribly apparent. That his life, and the lives of his children, depended on the whims of a monster. Which left him a choice to make: live or die. Fight, or succumb. Thranduil had made it clear that the choice was very simple. He could either continue along his current path, finish off the bottle of whiskey and hope it dulled the pain—or he could adapt. What that meant, Bard had no idea. But he would figure it out. He would discover what the man, or whatever he was, wanted, and do whatever he had to in order to deliver it. Maybe Thranduil had been right about one thing. Bard would do his best to make sure he was full of surprises.

When the first fingers of dawn began to probe around the shades, Bard pulled himself off the floor. He felt as if his bones had been peeled out and replaced with rubber, but he made it to his feet. More remarkable was the fact that the fear was gone. It had trailed out the door and into the night, and left him behind with something else. He didn’t know what it was he was feeling now. But it felt something like a sense of purpose.

And so he cleaned up the glass and splinters around the clock. He took a shower. He shaved. His hands stayed steady for the first time in weeks. He put the whiskey bottle back in the sock drawer, and straightened the blanket on his bed where he’d pulled out the gun. He didn’t need it anymore.

He’d whittle himself some stakes instead.


	5. Chapter 5

_He'd had this dream many times. He always despised it._

_Around him, the smoky tavern air eddied with voices and laughter. Or perhaps it was the smoke of a burning church—or the smell of exhaust. The dream sprawled across the span of his life, always changing in the corners but never where he could see it. Some things remained the same: the drink he lifted to his lips always tasted of blood, though the liquid swirling in his tankard was pale and golden. His mind could not recall what it had tasted like at the time. Faces moved around him that he didn't know—they belonged to the man whose blood Thranduil had taken the night before. He did not dream unless he had fed. He no longer had the capacity. But when he dreamed, she was always there._

_She sat across from him. Her name—her name was gone, locked away in a corner of his mind he would not visit. Her eyes danced with the light of a fire that was all their own—or was it a reflection? Thranduil could not turn his head to look. His eyes were locked ahead of him. He could change the dream, if he wished—for a moment he considered wandering to more recent memories, finding soft brown eyes instead of those knowing blue ones that promised nothing but pain. But Bard was a pursuit better left to his waking hours—there was no use dreaming about what he could still have. He turned to the woman and let the dream run its course._

_"You truly believe you are going to hell." She hadn't touched her drink. Awake, he could remember this night in crystalline detail—the last night Thranduil had looked at her with human eyes. Her nails had played on the metal handle of her tankard, and her pale hair spilled over her shoulders in a messy tangle. In the dream he saw her as he had known her, centuries of blood and lust and devotion painted across her face, her eyes dark, her mouth smeared with red one moment and curving into a clean smile the next. He saw her for what she was—the monster he had loved, and the monster which had made him._

_The words came to his lips even though he didn't want to say them. At the time they had come easily to him. He had been so naïve to think he knew of damnation. "Heaven is a place for the pure and virtuous. I cannot claim to be either."_

_"You're not burning yet," she murmured, reaching out to touch his hand with fingers that flashed red._

_Thranduil felt the dream struggling to drag him down, pull him into the real memory where his heart had leapt at her touch, nervous excitement coursing through his body like a fever. Now he watched the motion with nothing but resignation of what was to come._

_The dream changed. Soft grass cushioned his feet as he walked the hills beside her. Out into the night, past the barn and into the fields, the light of civilization dimming at their backs. He would have followed her anywhere that night. As they walked, they passed a pale corpse sprawling naked in the ditch by their path. The moonlight turned its skin to ash, and the grass it lay upon to the color of stone. He would not meet it until the next night, but it waited for him in his dreams. Its face changed as he looked at it, moving from his first to his second to all of the ones he had killed, its face writhing like maggots. He watched it and felt nothing but a vague sense of nausea. When the woman took his hand he followed her on._

_The moonlight guided them, pressing them on until he saw the slumping shape of a willow near the hillside they were climbing. He could hear the sound of running water nearby, swift and sightless. There were words in it too, but he did not care to hear them. She pulled him into the heart of the tree, the fronds touching his face like cool, dead hands._

_"I love these trees," she whispered, releasing his hand to press her palm to the bark. The dream twisted into the shape of a similar tree, years later though their faces were exactly the same. She had asked him if he regretted the change and he had told her no. He meant it. He still did._

_"They remind me of death," Thranduil replied as the dream settled itself once again._

_She looked at him. "And do you fear death?"_

_"All men fear death."_

_She turned back to face him at that, leaning so that her back was pressed to the tree trunk, her hands behind her. He felt himself moving forward, knew that at the time the sight had been too much to resist. When he kissed her he was careful to feel nothing, the dull ache in his chest all too familiar. It waited for him whenever he dreamed of her.  Memories bloomed under every ghostly touch: The way she'd laughed on the bridge in Paris. The first time he felt her feed. Waking up with the last rays of sundown and feeling her watching him from the darkness. He didn't want to feel any of it anymore._

_He knew what came next. He could have mouthed along as she pulled back to look at him with a terrible fondness in her eyes. "What if I told you that you didn't have to be afraid?"_

_"Then I would call it a cruel lie."_

_"And what if it were the truth?" This time when she leaned in to whisper into his hear, Thranduil could feel her words seeping into him like a deep, ruthless cold. "What price would you pay to for eternal life?"_

_He knew what was coming—he had dreamed it hundreds of times, always the same. The question she would ask through elongating teeth, showing him nothing but the truth in their final moments. The answer he would give in a voice that trembled despite his resolution. The sweetest pain to follow, and then—he would be reborn._

_But something was different._

_The pain never came. He opened his eyes and realized he was alone, the willow fronds waving gently in a breeze he did not feel. The pressure on his wrists was gone; he touched hisskin, felt the warmth there. He shouldn't be warm. He hadn't been in centuries._

_"I forgive you."_

_The voice was as dull as a whisper in his ear. He knew her voice, the exact cadence of those words. They played in his mind more than any other when the sun drove him into sleep. He twisted around, searching for the source, but there was no one under the boughs of the tree with him. The smell of oil rose in his nostrils, and with it came the memories. Smoke. Flame. Screaming, but not his own. Not yet._

_Everything was moving slowly now, the dream thickening around his limbs like cement. There was someone behind him. Turning around took all his strength, his muscles seemingly made of stone. The dark figure was silhouetted against the moonlight, standing amongst the willow leaves. The light changed—the moon was racing across the sky, dragging the night with it. It was Bard's face that watched Thranduil from beneath the branches, his eyes cold and blank._

_"Don't fear the dark." The words trailed down the back of Thranduil's neck, wearing Bard's voice like a second skin. The man's flesh was pale, his eyes dark—something burned beneath the surface of his skin, and struggled to get out. Thranduil had decided not to dream of him tonight—how could he be here?_

_At once, Thranduil wanted very much to wake up._

_He tried to will his mind to rise out of the pall of the dream as he had so many times. It was like a mouse twitching against the paws of a cat. The harder he struggled to wake, the brighter the light seemed to grow. The world seemed to twist and writhe at the edges of his vision, but the man before  him seemed to only grow more solid. Bard's hand rose from his side, slowly dipped into the pocket of his coat. The horizon was growing light behind him, but not with dawn—Thranduil could hear the crackle of flames surging towards him like a tidal wave._

_With deliberate slowness, Bard drew a pack of matches from out of his pocket. Thranduil could not look away from his eyes, could not stop searching for the man within that void. Bard's fingers drew out a match even as his outline seemed to waver, shifting in the heat. His face was changing into one Thranduil could not see, but if he only looked a little closer…_

_There was the sound of a striking match, and the world erupted into agonizing light._

Thranduil tore out of sleep with a howl, the pain on his face unbearable—his body moved on instinct, lunging away from the heat that had suddenly bathed his face. He threw his body into the furthest corner, back to the wall, his muscles tense. Sleep still clung to him like cobwebs he could not seem to fight his way through as his eyes scanned the room. Slowly, he came back to himself. The room was empty, and dark—save for a single band of light thrown across the pillow like a sword. One of the heavy mats he had pinned to the window to keep the sunlight away had slipped an inch in the night. Raising gentle fingers to his face, he touched the skin there—it felt smooth, but the pain was all too real. It would heal quickly enough. Thranduil stared at that light, feeling the anger slowly cede to something less comfortable.

The dream still echoed in his mind like strains of distant music, odd and disconcerting. His dreams were always the same, little more than twisted memories, never too far from the truth. Most importantly, no matter what memories might try to surface, Thranduil was always in control.

This had been different. Thranduil leaned his head back against the wall, pressing his palms to the cool surface of the wall. He did not know what such a dream could mean, and he was not accustomed to uncertainty. Bard's face rose against his eyes as he let them slide closed, but in Thranduil's mind his skin was pale and his eyes were empty. The man in his dream may have worn Bard's face, but he was nothing Thranduil had ever seen—and nothing he was keen to. Whatever had walked his dreams that night had been something totally inhuman.

The dreams of burning had not come to Thranduil for some time. That was a chapter of his history that Bard had no place in.  He had no right to enter Thranduil's mind uninvited. He was _nothing_. And yet the memory of the dream, the light of the match flaring against the blackness of his eyes, still sent a curl of unease through Thranduil's gut. His hands tensed into fists, his nails dragging scratches up the wallpaper. He would visit Bard tonight, and remind himself that the man was nothing more than a man.

Pushing himself off the wall, he stalked over to the strip of light bisecting the floor. He paused just before it, staring down at it with powerless dislike. Raising a hand, he let his fingers linger just where the sunlight couldn't touch. His skin tingled, began to go numb. With a grimace, he let his hand fall. Until darkness came, he would be penned in this empty room like a beast in a zoo enclosure. He wanted to taste the night air, find someone to fill him with red so he could remind himself of what he was. There was nothing out there that he had left to fear.

He prowled back and forth, along the bar of light, agitation seething within him. He could feel the sun going down outside, a slow ebbing of heat, the way an animal could sense the passing of a storm. He could remember his very first sunset, the way the light had seemed to cut through him even through the walls of the cave he had sheltered in. He was stronger now. Only direct sunlight could hurt him now, though the daytime would slow his mind like a reptile in the cold. As a fledgling, he hadn't been able to fight its soporific effects—even now he could feel it lulling him. He didn't want to be soothed. He wanted to _hunt_.

Thranduil stopped in his tracks. The thought, and the rising hunger that accompanied it, had not been his own. There was something wrong in the set of the air, as if something in the sparse room had been rearranged while he slept. With a start, he realized it wasn't just sunlight and foul dreams twisting his moods. He had fed too recently to feel the hunger this soon. His senses prickled, the knife of light sliding across the floor turning a deeper red. As the sun went down and the stifling heat cleared from his mind, he began to feel it with certainty. There was another one of his kin nearby. And she was hungry.

He could feel the ripplings of hunger stirring across him, light as a feather, yet insistent. The sensations were not his own, but in a way they still belonged to him. Though she wouldn't be able to move in daylight, Thranduil felt his instincts urging him on to the challenge. _Interloper_ , something beneath his mind whispered. _Family_ , another part reminded him. He had scarcely been in this area for two months, yet already the urge to defend his territory was strong. Most of his kind would avoid any ground he had laid claim to on principle. But such a rule did not apply to any he had sired.

A long inhalation passed his lips at the realization. Immediately, he forced his emotions into check. The bond between a vampire and its sire was strong—as he could sense her emotions, she may be able to feel his own. With her more than others it was important not to show weakness. Tauriel had always been the first to go for the throat. What had brought her here, Thranduil could not begin to guess. Their last parting had not been on the best of terms, but he had always fostered a fondness for her. All the same, her presence here only deepened the feeling of unease still lingering from his dream. He pushed such thoughts from his mind, sending Bard's face with them. He would resolve those feelings soon enough. Until then, he waited for night.

The light shifted from gold to red, then withered into a shrinking grey. Thranduil crouched, his eyes watching impatiently as dusk fell away. When the light turned a deep blue, Thranduil rose and strode over to the window. He wrenched the blind back into place with a single tug, sealing the room in darkness once again. A moment later he was gone.  

The apartment building was seedy and anonymous as he slid through the empty hallways. There were no security cameras in the building, and the doors came with extra locks. He had many such places like these, set up with automatic payments should he ever need a safe place to shelter from the sun. When people passed by in the hallways they did not make eye contact. No one would see him come or leave, and no one would know he was there. He was merely another face in another crowd, milling in a town that did not appear on most maps. And yet, for all his caution, Tauriel had found him.

The roads still bustled with cars like blood vessels pumping through a creaking mechanical heart. People were returning home or fleeing it, seeing what the night had to promise. Thranduil drove with his window down, eyes scanning the faces without seeing them. Occasionally some would spare him a strange look, a twinge of some primal nerve drawing their eyes back. For the most part, he was completely anonymous. Normally he would take pleasure in moving among humanity the way a wolf might enjoy his sheep's clothing, but now Thranduil's body was still and stiff. He spared no motion, no appearance of life.

It was no difficult to find her—she made no attempts to hide. He could feel her anticipation growing the closer he got, the stirrings of hunger becoming a pit that yawned outside of himself like a vast sinkhole. She was hunting. Thranduil was nearing the edge of town now, the traffic thinning out to an occasional pair of passing headlights. The light of a gas station, an offensive white against the darkness, burned like a beacon on the side of the road. Thranduil made the turn, the thrill of her thirst enough to incite a similar response in himself. He pulled past the fuel pumps, heading for the back parking lot. There were no lights there. There was only one other car. Two people were standing beside it, a man and a woman, her back pressed against the side with his hands buried in her long red hair. The man had not noticed him yet. Thranduil stopped a distance away, the anger growing.

"Tauriel." His voice rang like a command.

The man pulled away immediately with a muffled curse, hurrying to readjust his clothing. Tauriel slid her hands down to rest on the man's shoulders in a deceptively light grip. When she turned to meet Thranduil's eye, her smile was lazy.

"Thranduil," she said in greeting. Her voice was amused.

"You know this guy?" her quarry asked in a stumbling voice.

"Don't worry," Tauriel murmured in a voice that brooked no argument. "He's a friend."

Thranduil would not debate that point. The man Tauriel had chosen was well-formed, young, and clearly out of his depth.  Tauriel had always preferred his kind, the gentle ones still full of innocence. His eyes darted between Tauriel and Thranduil, the thick haze of lust clouding his uncertainty.

"I think we should get out of here," he said, though he made no move to pull away.

"Nonsense," Tauriel murmured, taking his face between her fingers and pulling him in for a slow kiss. Any chance at survival melted away under her lips. The man was already lost. He would have done anything Tauriel asked of him. When she pulled back, his eyes strayed to Thranduil no more. Her hands wandered up behind his neck, her fingers tracing lines over his skin. Thranduil could feel through her the roughness of his stubble, the way his heart fluttered beneath her touch. It took all his effort not to clench his hands into fists.

"I did not expect to see you here so soon," Tauriel said, twirling a finger around the man's ear and following it with a kiss. The man gave a start, still looking at Thranduil, seemingly unsure whether to submit to her affections or insist on privacy. Evidently she was very convincing. His eyes quickly glazed over, turning docile once more.

"Why don't you join us?" Tauriel murmured, splaying her fingers over the man's neck and tilting it back for a slow kiss. He was pliant under her hands. Thranduil said nothing.

Tauriel shrugged. "Suit yourself." Her hands tightened in the man's hair. A moment later, she bit down.

Thranduil could not repress the gasp that escaped lips as the blood surged into her mouth, nor the way his fingernails dug into his palms. The dull, red thudding seemed to fill his head as Tauriel drank, threatening to drag him down with her. Resisting the temptation to close the few strides between them and sink his teeth into the flesh that Tauriel hadn't claimed, just as they had done before. He knew she could feel his desire as well as he could feel hers.

She finished it quickly. The man's eyes remained wide, first with fear and then with something resembling adoration before they took on the blankness of death. His hands, which seconds ago had begun trying to shove her away, dug nerveless into her back in ecstasy. His face was contorted with something that could have been pain or bliss—a low moan rattled from his throat, and then nothing more. Only when his body went completely limp and lifeless did Tauriel pull away, her eyes bright, blood smeared across her chin. With a swipe of her hand she succeeded in smearing it across her cheek.

"You draw far too much attention to yourself." Thranduil spoke without moving any closer. He did not trust himself yet.

Tauriel treated him to a look of mild annoyance. "He was a drifter," she said simply, holding the corpse up with no effort at all. With her free hand, she popped the trunk of her car open, revealing an interior coated in plastic wrap. She tossed the limp body in without a second look. "Just out of art school, hitch-hiking his way across the country. His absence will not be noted. Plenty of children like him get lost along the roads."

"You will not hunt on my territory again," Thranduil said coldly.

When Tauriel met his gaze, the spark of defiance he saw so often in her eyes guttered. She shook her head and closed the trunk with a loud clunk, locking the man's dead eyes away. "You aren't being very hospitable. Especially to one of your own."

Thranduil repressed a snarl. The smell of blood was still in the air. Even though he had fed the night before, he knew he would hunt again tonight. "Why are you here, Tauriel?"

She snorted, leaning back against the trunk and crossing her arms over her chest. "To help you."

"What could you possibly have to offer me?"

The faint smile on Tauriel's lips faded. "Nothing you want to hear."

Something in her voice gave him pause, smothering the anger and leaving only a bad taste in his mouth. "If you didn't intend to tell me, you wouldn't have come."

"True." She studied him closely. "It's been over two centuries since you sired me."

"I remember." As clearly as the night it happened, he recalled the look in her eyes as he held out his wrist for her to drink. It had been one of fear, yes—but also of resolution.

Tauriel glanced away. Her arms crossed over her chest pulled tighter. She was hiding something from him, shielding her thoughts. "And before that, how many years since you were burned?"

The flare of a match, the distant crackling of flames—these images flashed through Thranduil's mind almost instantly. If Tauriel felt any of it, she made no indication. He had to resist the urge to touch the left side of his face. "I told you we would not discuss that."

"I know. And I would not wish to, unless it were necessary." The air between them seemed to grow thicker. He could see Tauriel moving towards something, reaching for it, and she was almost there…

At once, he knew. She did not need to open her mind—he could see it in the set of her shoulders, the hunted look in her eyes. A different sort of darkness curled around his heart, one he had no defense against. It seized him like an enormous fist, and crushed until he was nothing.

"He's back," Thranduil said hollowly. "Smaug is back."

Tauriel only nodded.

Thranduil turned away. It had been a long time since he had experienced true fear. Yet the name walked down his spine and squatted in his stomach, the smell of burning oil rising in his nostrils as clearly as it had in his dream. It was enough to make his stomach twist with nausea. Thranduil let no sign of his emotions touch his face, keeping them carefully shielded. He would not let Tauriel see.

"I had the Durin clan keeping tabs on him while I was in Mongolia," Tauriel continued in a low voice. "I didn't hear what they were planning until it was too late—they always had more intentions than simple observation. They intended to kill him. By the time word reached me of what they planned to do, it was too late—they were destroyed, and he… he was awake."

There was a long pause. "Where is he?"

"I tracked him through Ukraine, Russia, then all the way to Prague."

"Prague," Thranduil echoed, his voice still devoid of emotion. "If my memory serves, Feren and Galion are there."

The look on her face was enough for him to immediately change the tense in his head. They were gonetfthe . Presumably so were many others. The last time Smaug had awakened and come crawling back into the world there had been no victors—only survivors. Those that managed to cling to existence did so at a high price. Tauriel did not know—she had not been born yet, as a human or a vampire. For her, the name was only a legend, whispered like a ghost story. She did not know to be truly afraid.

He turned back to face her. She had taken a step away from her car as if to comfort him—under his gaze, she shrank back. "If Smaug is hunting," Thranduil said, "then I expect he is looking for me."

"Yes." Tauriel fidgeted under his stare. "I came as soon as I realized you were in danger. I hid my trail as well as you've taught me, but I doubt it will matter—he found the others, and he can find you here. It's only a matter of time. If we leave now, try to keep moving—"

"No," Thranduil said, a little too sharply. "This town is small, insignificant. He will not think to look here." He took a breath, let it stabilize him. "It is safer to bunker down, and remain on familiar ground."

"But if we can gather the others, we could stand a chance—"

"That's exactly what Smaug wants," Thranduil said. "It isn't just me and mine that he's after, Tauriel. He wants to destroy all of our kind. Banding together would only make it easier for him."

Tauriel hesitated, and when she looked at him again it was with something softer in her eyes. He had seen that look long ago, back when she was still human. It had been a rare sight since. "What will it mean, if he finds us?"

She wanted to be comforted, reassured.  Thranduil said nothing. There was nothing he could offer her. Tauriel took his silence with a straightness in her back, her chin raised and her insecurities swallowed down. Her face was hard once more. She had learned from Thranduil well. Instead, she regarded him with a more calculated stare. "I saw that new human of yours last night. Is he going to present a problem?"

Thranduil felt a sudden thrill of anger at the thought of Tauriel watching Bard. "He is merely a diversion," he replied, as careful as ever to keep his tone level.

Tauriel shook her head. "That's what I'm afraid of. The last thing you need in times like these is a distraction."

"He means nothing to me."

The smirk on her lips was cruel. "Oh? Then perhaps we should pay him a visit tonight. It's been too long since we shared a kill, don't you think? We could flip a coin for who gets which artery—carotid or femoral. Unless, of course, you have a preference." She leaned back with a grin. "Either way, I'm sure he would taste just as good."

"Bard is off limits," Thranduil said, the faint traces of a growl resonating beneath his voice. He knew she could feel the anger rising at the thought of her feeding from him. This time he did not try to hide it.

Tauriel nodded thoughtfully, her smile turning triumphant. "So his name is Bard? Well, you should know there's no use in lying to me about your attachments. I can _feel_ how badly you want to crack his ribs open." She cocked her head. "What I don’t understand is why you don't just do it."

"There are some things sweeter than a quick kill."

"Not in my experience."

"Wait another few centuries. You will come to understand."

Tauriel laughed. "Well, you shouldn't worry. I know how you are about your playthings—I won't touch him." The teasing expression faded into a more serious one again. "Just don't grow too attached. In times like these, we can't afford to have weaknesses."

Without another word, Tauriel walked to her car door and tugged it open, climbing in without ado. Thranduil watched her go, the same restlessness rising in his chest. The need to protect his own.

"Tauriel." She paused at his voice, hand ready to close the door. "I would have you stay close."

Her lips twisted slightly. "Wouldn't it be safer for us to split up?"

"Perhaps."

"I can take care of myself, you know."

"I know."

With a smirk, Tauriel slammed her car door and started the ignition. Thranduil watched her peel out of the parking lot, the tail-lights red, the trunk smelling of death. Her words formed an icy pit in his stomach that he knew no amount of fresh blood would fill. The last time Smaug had retreated into sleep, Thranduil had hoped he would never wake. Such a wish had been childish. He should have been preparing for this, but instead he had flitted through the world  like ash on the breeze, convincing himself that the worst had already happened. And now, over three centuries later, Thranduil would face the worst again.

The skin on his left side seemed to itch and burn as if it were under the sun, but the sky was still black. Memories of the dream resurfaced, the willow tree and the approaching wall of flame. Bard's expressionless eyes, seeing all and feeling nothing. Thranduil wanted to chase it all away.

He knew where he needed to be.

The drive was quick, his hands gripping the steering wheel tightly until he hid his to make the rest of the journey through the woods, unseen. The smell of leaf-mould, the sweetness of sap and leaves mingling with the musty smell of animals—it brought him into the past, to the first night he had opened his new eyes and stepped into the night as a part of it. His creator had guided him into that world as gently as a boat down the smooth face of a river. The world had seemed full of beauty and promise then. He had learned since then that there worse things than himself that moved in the shadows.

The small cluster of houses drew him like a lamp post on a lonely road. He slowed his pace, moving delicately through the trees near the edge of the forest. The house he wanted looked much different than the last time he had been inside—all the shutters had been raised, letting the light lash out at the night in hard-edged squares. Inside there was life, not the stale cloak of fear and resignation that had hung over it for nearly a month. When Thranduil breathed deeply of the air now, he smelled only anticipation. 

Bard was in the kitchen. He had pulled his hair back from his face, rolled up his sleeves. He moved in quiet contemplation, preparing food. Thranduil waited in the trees, watching as one of his children—the boy—shuffled through the kitchen to sneak some early morsel of dinner. Bard laughed, shooed him off.

The change in his manner was striking—not so long ago the man had looked incapable of laughter. It was as if he had already forgotten the darkness that waited in his shadow—as if he had forgotten Thranduil entirely. He was possessed by a sudden urge to burst inside, make him remember, make him see. Hunger stirred again, but it wasn't his blood Thranduil wanted for now. He wanted to tear through Bard's clothes like paper, have the man right here on the forest floor until he begged first for mercy and then for more. Thranduil would bury his dreams in Bard's flesh, make himself forget. All he needed to do was raise his hand and beckon, to bring the man out into the night.

Bard paused. Alone, his eyes raised to the forest. Thranduil stood a good distance into the trees, yet Bard's eyes found him almost immediately. The man did not start—he merely watched, wary, yet his hands were steady. The look sent a thrill down Thranduil's spine. He imagined Bard setting down the knife (or bringing it, perhaps) and stepping out the back door, moving through the trees until he and Thranduil were a few feet apart. And when he looked into Bard's eyes—emptiness.

No, that wasn't right. Thranduil resisted the urge to shake his head, try and dislodge the pieces of dream that clung to the inside of his skull like pale grey moths. Even as he looked at Bard now, it seemed a heat that wasn't there shimmered in the air around him. The smell of smoke hung in the air—but it was only from the cooking. Thranduil forced his fists to unclench, forced a smile onto his lips that was full of implications. Bard's gaze didn't falter.

A beckon of his hand. That was all it would take. But Thranduil's hands stayed still by his side, and the lust cooled to something uneasy. The smell of smoke seemed to thicken in the air. As the moment dragged on, something on Bard's face seemed to change—as if he had come to a decision. Without so much as a motion of acknowledgement, Bard looked down and returned to chopping vegetables.

Thranduil watched, indignation slowly growing inside of him. Bard did not look at him again, bustling around the kitchen until dinner was ready. His children were shadows that flashed against the windows as they all came tumbling down the stairs. When Bard took his place at the table, it was with his back to the window. Thranduil stared at the back of his head, his fingers flexing by his side. He was not accustomed to being ignored.  It wasn't a gesture he should allow Bard to make.

But even though he knew he could walk into Bard's kitchen and use that knife for something more memorable than slicing carrots, Thranduil found he didn't want to. He was buffeted back by something black and choking and smelling like burning oil. Not even the hunger could penetrate it. The knowledge of what waited beyond the darkness, drifting closer with every passing moment, black-eyed and open-mouthed, smiling an animal smile.

Mechanically, his fingers grasped for the pack of cigarettes in the pocket of his coat. He lit one with steady hands, forcing himself to choke down the taste of smoke even as it made the memories heave. It was nothing to him. He was not afraid.

He turned and made his way back through the woods, fury and apprehension driving him onward. Let Bard have this one night. When next they saw each other, the last traces of the dream would be gone. And then Bard would find out what it meant to turn Thranduil away.


	6. Chapter 6

The air in the kitchen grew thick and warm as the stove heated up. Bard watched as the metal coils went from dull grey to a smoldering red, the second can of store-bought ravioli in his hand. Tonight's dinner, a family classic. They'd been eating it for years, but this was the first time Bard mixed a healthy amount of pressed garlic into the sauce. He'd been doing his research. Tomato sauce bubbled up around the pale pasta, red and gory, the thick bubbles rising and popping like blisters. The night was a thick blanket thrown over his house. It was the waiting Bard couldn't stand.

In the background, the local radio played another song he didn't recognize. The window in front of him faced the trees. Just last night he had stood here making dinner, and looked out to see a familiar shape standing amongst the trees. Thranduil never quite seemed to be _in_ the forest—he wore the woods like a familiar coat, filling it with the flesh and purpose it lacked in the daytime. He was there as soon as the sun went down, even when he wasn't—the woods belonged to him now, and when the branches scraped against the windowpane it sounded like fingernails.

Yet he wasn't afraid. He left the blinds open when night fell, and he could cross the windows with little more than a chill running down his spine. He stared out through the panes like he was looking into a dark aquarium. Seeing Thranduil's pale face staring back was just another reminder that he was the exhibit. Last night it was as if his eyes were on a track as they rose to find Thranduil's, impossible to look anywhere else. If he turned away, it was because he didn't want to feel as if his life had become inevitable.  But inside, with his family, he could cling to some measure of safety.

The ropes of garlic in the cupboards, the crucifixes hidden underneath the furniture, and the stake in the drawer of his nightstand helped a bit with that too.

Behind him, the radio crackled with the end of a song. The announcers launched into the local news, and on reflex Bard reached over to turn it off. His fingers paused on the dial when the first line of a report began to play.

"...Margaret Hudson, 35, was last seen in at 9:00 on Thursday night in the security footage of her business. Police Chief Braga says the authorities are exploring all leads, and do not yet have evidence to suggest foul play. If any of our listeners have any information about Ms. Blake's whereabouts, please—"

Bard twisted the dial until the radio died with a click, swallowing past the sick feeling in his stomach. It was a small town, and he'd known her. Not well—they'd spoken once or twice when they ran into each other at the grocery store, and that was it. Still, it was her face he was imagining now, stricken with horror, slowly growing pale and limp as the life drained out of her. He squeezed his eyes shut, willing the image away. People went missing sometimes. It was possible that the woman had simply left town without telling anyone, or perhaps even had an accident of some kind. Hundreds of thousands of people were reported missing every year—Bard had looked it up. Margaret could have simple slipped through the cracks, like so many others before her. The smooth, black surface of the window offered him no comfort.

A hot flash of anger shot through his chest. He was tired of feeling like a prisoner in his own house. He turned away, marching the empty tin can over to the trash. The bag was nearly full. He could easily leave it until morning, haul it out in the daylight hours, wave hello to Ms. Jameson sitting on her front porch as he did. That would be, all in all, the smart thing to do—the safe thing to do. Outside, the wind teased at the edges of the window with deft, slippery fingers. The still summer nights were long gone now. But it wasn't the wind, or the cold, that made Bard hesitate. Whatever was waiting out there, there was nothing stopping it from following him inside. Margaret's face came to mind unbidden. Bard could hide in his kitchen as long as he liked. But out there other people paying the price.

He tossed the empty pasta can into the trash, lifted the bag out, and tied it. A moment later he stepped outside.

As soon as the door swung shut with a hiss he wished he had grabbed a coat—the night wind prickled on his bare arms, bringing the smell of pine trees and earth. It spurred him onwards to the garbage cans near the back of the house, the bag's plastic handles cutting white lines into the creases of his fingers even after he slung it into the bin.

The short stretch of lawn between him and the edge of the forest was slapped with a sheen of yellow light from the kitchen windows behind him. Without the pane of glass to keep them at bay, the trees seemed raw, thrown into too sharp of a focus. Bard faced them, defiance beating hard in his chest. No one stepped out of the trees, or beckoned him further. There was no dark figure waiting for him tonight. A hard, triumphant smile settled on Bard's lips as he turned back to the house.

it took a moment for the pieces to click into place when he glanced up through the window. He saw a shape against the refrigerator wasn't supposed to be there. The fear didn't kick in until he recognized the fringe of pale hair shifting slightly with the person's movements.

Thranduil was in his house.

Bard might have expected the door to be locked as he sprinted up the short flight of steps. He might have thought to see Thranduil gone, hear his footsteps moving up the staircase to where Bard's children waited for dinner. But the door turned under his hand, and as he staggered into the kitchen Thranduil had scarcely moved. The sense of relief Bard felt was almost sickening.

Long fingers reached up to pluck a photo off the refrigerator door, Thranduil's pale eyes scrutinizing it with a private smile. Bard could tell even from across the room that it was a picture taken last winter, him and his kids all piled in the snow. Bard had to resist the urge to lunge across the distance and pluck it out of Thranduil's hands.

At long last Thranduil slid the picture back under its magnet. "Hello Bard," he said as he turned around. He was smiling, a glint in his eyes that looked like levity.

Bard took a short, steadying breath. "It's polite to ask before letting yourself in."

Thranduil raised his eyebrows. "You left the door open." Bard had known it would only be a matter of time before Thranduil came back to him. That didn't stop his heart from beating fast in his chest, or the cold sweat from prickling over his skin.

"You shouldn't be here now." He kept his voice in a low and quiet, struggling not to shoot an apprehensive glance towards the door to the rest of the house. His children were out there somewhere, playing video games or listening to music, totally unaware of the fox in the henhouse.

Thranduil chuckled. "And why not?"

"It's almost dinner. My children are here." The stake was in his bedroom. It might as well be across an ocean. He should have kept it on his person, should have—but it was too late now.

He turned around, scraping chopped lettuce into a salad bowl with the flat edge of the knife. Having the blade in his hand was small comfort, even if he suspected it would be useless. Bard wouldn't forget the way the gun leapt in his hands, the thick black blood oozing out onto Thranduil's shirt. It hadn't killed him—it had hardly slowed him down. "Come back in an hour. We'll be finished by then."

He may not have seen Thranduil's face, but he could imagine it well enough. The brief silence was as cool as the draft from an open window at his back. "Is that a dismissal, Bard?"

Bard shrugged, forcing the looseness in his shoulders he didn't feel as he turned back around. The knife was still in his hand. "Merely a suggestion. I thought you might prefer to have me to yourself."

The smile that spread across Thranduil's face was enough to make Bard's knuckles go white. "Tempting. But maybe I like seeing you nervous." Thranduil's eyes travelled down to the knife Bard was clutching. His amusement was obvious enough. After a long moment, Bard unclenched his fingers and set the knife down on the counter. He would have to be patient, and nudge Thranduil out of his home as carefully as a poisonous snake.

Once the knife was out of Bard's hands, Thranduil's eyes began to wander around the kitchen. Eventually they settled on the cooking pot. He took a long inhale through his nose, cocking an eyebrow."What's for dinner?"

Bard laughed hollowly. "Something tells me you aren't interested in the ravioli."

Thranduil looked at him down his nose in a disparaging way. "Really, Bard. I'm not a beast. I have other interests other than feeding. If I didn't, as you so eloquently put it at our last meeting, you'd already be dead."

Bard did not doubt him there. He would not soon let himself forget how quickly Thranduil could move, how unpredictable his intentions could be. Though in this moment he seemed at ease, leaning back on the counter and looking incredibly ordinary. His skin, though pale, hand a faint tinge of pink clinging to it. His coat was unbuttoned to reveal a simple blue shirt beneath it, the top buttons undone. As convincing as the act might be, it still rang empty. Even staring straight at him, Bard could not shake the feeling that he was alone in the room.

Thranduil smirked—he was clearly enjoying the attention. Bard crossed his arms over his chest. "Well, whatever you're here for, it will have to wait. I'm in the middle of making dinner." Though every instinct screamed against it, Bard turned his back and began unloading the dishwasher. The back of his neck crawled at Thranduil's presence behind him, but he forced his hands to remain steady and his motions smooth. When he looked up, Thranduil was lifting the lid of the pot curiously.

"Get away from there," Bard said sharply.

Thranduil looked up with amusement. "I'm not going to poison it, if that's what concerns you."

"I don't care. Don't touch it." He returned to the plates as Thranduil moved away, painfully aware of how the man's eyes tracked him.

"Can I help?" Though he didn't turn, Bard heard the irony in his voice.

"You can get out," Bard retorted. He picked up another plate. It was warm under his hands.

Suddenly Thranduil was right beside him. "I insist," he said, reaching to take the plate. His fingers brushed Bard's, sending a jolt through Bard's body. A split second later the plate was shattering on the floor with a chiming crash. The pieces scattered like they'd taken on a life of their own as Bard whirled to face Thranduil head-on, the proximity between them as unnerving as ever.

Thranduil's lips twisted. "Sorry."

Bard's hand flexed unconsciously. "Your skin is warm," he said accusingly.

Thranduil raised it, a thoughtful expression on his face. "A side effect of feeding recently." The fingers contracted. "The blood keeps me warm for a time."

A shiver passed down Bard's back. What he'd felt was the warmth stolen from another body, like the last piece of their life straining to get free. As he looked at Thranduil now, he could see the signs more clearly. The flush in his cheeks, the laziness in his eyes—this close he even smelled different, sweet and warm and clean. He gritted his teeth and tried not to breathe.

"Da?" His heart plummeted as Sigrid's voice rang out from the top of the stairs. "Did you break something?"

The old panic flooded back as Thranduil's smile widened. It was as if he could see the two spheres of his life separately, one containing his children and the other containing Thranduil, both rolling inevitably towards each other. He didn't want to think about what would happen if they collided. "Don't come down!" he yelled back, painfully aware of the strain in his voice. "I'm fine, just stay upstairs."

There was a pause. "Why do you sound weird?" she asked. With a sinking in his heart, he heard her footsteps thumping down the stairs.

"Really, Sigrid, there's broken pieces everywhere—" he said, speaking past the fist that seemed to clench over his throat. "Please don't come in here. I'll pick it up."

The footsteps stop. He heard her aggravated sigh. "Fine," she groaned. A sigh of relief escaped him as he heard her footsteps going back up to the top floor.

"Are you trying to keep your children away from me?" Thranduil asked innocently. Bard didn't dignify it with a response, brushing past Thranduil to start picking up the pieces. Their sharp edges glinted cruelly in the light.

"I'd like to meet them," Thranduil mused, leaning on the counter to watch Bard work.

"No."

"I'm quite good with children, Bard," Thranduil said, moving around Bard's kitchen with a leisurely pace. Bard did his best to keep Thranduil in his line of sight. His skin felt as if it was pulled taught across his body, and the slightest pressure could tear it. "I generally don't prefer them, but their blood is often the sweetest."

" _Shut up._ "

Thranduil tilted his head with a smile. "Just a joke, Bard. No need to be rude."

"I'm playing along aren't I?" Bard snapped, rising up to dump the fragments of the plate into the garbage. "You said you would leave my kids alone if I did what you wanted."

Thranduil turned his eyes up thoughtfully. "I don't recall making such an agreement."

Bard felt a pit of rage and despair twist in his heart. He quickly turned to the final piece of the plate that had slid under the refrigerator so that Thranduil couldn't see. "You know what I'm talking about," he said, struggling to keep his voice level, quiet enough that no one else would hear and come running. He groped under the fridge blindly, feeling for the fragment he knew was there. "You said if—ah!" He whipped his hand back, staring dumbly at the slash of red blooming on this thumb. The piece of the plate had been sharper than he thought. With a sinking feeling, he rose to his feet and turned to face Thranduil. The man had not moved, but his eyes were trained on the spot of red, nestled on Bard's skin like a ruby. Bard quickly pressed another finger over the shallow cut, trying to press the blood back down.

"I said your children were next in line, should you prove… uninteresting," Thranduil said. He stepped forward, eyes rising to meet Bard's. "I said nothing about what would happen if that wasn't the case. But rest assured—I never kill without reason." The implication of what would happen if Bard gave Thranduil a reason hung in the air between them. Thranduil was very close now, crowding Bard's space, but he knew if he backed down Thranduil would pursue, and that would be unwise. So he stood very still as Thranduil reached for his injured hand, the faint warmth in his fingertips making Bard's skin crawl.

Yet his grip was gentle, tender almost, as he raised Bard's hand to his lips and brushed a kiss across the back. Bard watched, frozen, as Thranduil shifted his attention to the bleeding thumb—letting his lips hover over it for a moment before taking it into his mouth, never once breaking Bard's gaze. His eyelashes lowered slightly as soon as it passed his lips. Bard could feel his tongue moving against his flesh, the sharp sting on the cut shooting straight through him like the jab of a pin. He hardly felt the pain—the scar on his neck throbbed. Thranduil's tongue moved in ways that Bard couldn't ignore, knowing Thranduil was tasting him, unable to pull his hand away. He couldn't ignore it now, the heat building in his body, tinged with horror yet enticing all the same. Thranduil's other hand began to slide down his arm and he did nothing to stop it. And all the while Thranduil watched, and his eyes told Bard a story of what else his mouth could be doing.

Thranduil pulled away ever so slightly, his other hand settling on Bard's upper arm. "You shouldn't have ignored me last night," he murmured, the pad of his thumb dragging over the skin just inside the short hem of Bard's sleeve. The other hand still gripped his wrist.  "Now I have to do something _interesting_."

His hands began to tighten.

The loud, hurried thud of footsteps half-tripping down the stairs snapped Bard back to reality. He jerked his hands away and Thranduil let him. Seconds after Bard stepped back, Bain rounded the corner to the kitchen.

"Hey Da is dinner ready y—" he broke off as soon as he saw Thranduil. "Oh," Bain said, blinking in confusion. "I didn't know you had someone over."

Bard couldn't find the words to speak. His eyes traveled from Bain to Thranduil, still standing just a little too close. The hunger in his eyes had fled the moment Bain crossed the threshold. Now there was something different there, something much worse. With a twist in his gut, Bard could practically see the gears in Thranduil's mind changing direction, shifting to something gleeful and malicious. Something almost playful.

"It's fine," Bard said, his throat dry. A splatter from the stove tore Bard's eyes away. The pasta sauce was boiling over, sending red flecks onto the surrounding stovetop. He hurried over to it and yanked the dials to zero with shaking hands. The cut on his thumb was already closed, the skin on his finger seeming to shine to his senses like a beacon, hypersensitive. He tried not to think about it. "Go upstairs. I'll call you when dinner's ready."

"It looks like it's about done," Thranduil observed from where Bard had left him. Bard risked a look behind him to see Thranduil watching Bain with that evil amusement, his son's eyes darting uncertainly between the two men in the kitchen.

"Is your friend staying for dinner?" Bain asked hesitantly.

"What a wonderful idea," Thranduil said before Bard could deny it. He turned to Bard with his eyebrows raised. Bard could practically hear his mocking laughter. "As long as it's not a problem."

Bard could recognize a veiled command when he saw it. He could try and make excuses, coax Thranduil out of the house, but he could see already it would be futile. That gleam in Thranduil's eyes was evidence enough. He was going to stay. The only question was whether Bard would cooperate, or face the consequences.

With his son standing just a few feet away, it wasn't a question at all.

"No problem at all," Bard said stiffly, struggling not to clench his hands into fists. "Go get your sisters," he said to Bain. As Bain left the room, Bard could only stare at Thranduil with something that balanced between a threat and resignation. His voice was shaking as he stepped forward. "What do you want?" he said, his hands clenched by his sides. "Tell me, and I'll do my best to give it to you. Just leave my children out of this."

Thranduil tilted his head, seeming to consider it. When his eyes found Bard again, they were glinting. "The thing about my interests, Bard, is that they change so very quickly," he said, a feral grin spreading across his face. His fingers slid to the front of Bard's shirt, pressing the flat of his palm there. "For example, I might just want to have dinner with your family. Or maybe I want to break both of your legs where you sit, and make you watch as I drain your children one by one." His fingers knotted in the fabric of Bard's shirt. Bard knew Thranduil could probably lift him off his feet from that grip alone, but the other man merely stood there, knowing Bard knew and enjoying that fact.

"The important thing for you to remember," Thranduil murmured, "is that there's nothing you can do to stop me either way." He leaned in, their noses practically brushing. "You're a pleasant distraction. Nothing more."

The blue of Thranduil's irises seemed to bore into his eyes, worming into his brain like a deep and numbing cold. Those eyes could hook into everything he was and tear it all out, if he let them. But the ravages of Thranduil's gaze couldn't stop the words from reaching Bard's mind, and hitting a key that was slightly off. "A distraction?" Bard repeated distantly. "A distraction from what?"

Thranduil's smile flickered. This close, there was no imagining it. A moment later the hand in Bard's shirt relaxed and Thranduil pulled away, his face as composed as ever. "Nothing which concerns you." No matter how convincing the façade, he couldn't smooth away the memory of what Bard had seen—a crack in the armor, a moment of uncertainty. Well then. It seemed there was something in this world that could still give Thranduil pause. Bard clung to that knowledge. He had a feeling he would need it.

But for now, there was nothing to do but play along. Bard grabbed the stack of intact plates and thrust them in Thranduil's direction. "Well. If you're staying for dinner, you might as well help set the table."

Thranduil's smile was obscene, but he took them without complaint. As he turned, he glanced over his shoulder at the pot on the stove. "By the way—the aversion to garlic is just a myth." Without another word he continued on into the dining room, plates in hand.

Bard had scarcely let himself breathe again before the patter of feet down the stairs signaled his kids were on the way. He had to fight down the urge to tell them all to stay upstairs, to stay as far away as they could. He was playing Thranduil's game now, and he had to play by the rules. He couldn't afford to be afraid. If his children knew something was wrong, it would all be over.

Sigrid came into the room first, but Bard knew Tilda and Bain were waiting just around the corner. "Hey Da," Sigrid said, the wariness in her voice telling him Bain had already told her about their mystery guest. Her eyes quickly found Thranduil. "Who's your friend?"

Thranduil stepped forward before he could speak. "My name is Thranduil," he said smoothly, holding out a hand. "I'm a friend of your father's." Bard didn't miss the delicate pause before 'friend', and neither did Bain or Sigrid. Still they shook Thranduil's hand and introduced themselves in turn, Tilda going last of all. The glance Thranduil shot at Bard as he shook her small hand was enough to make Bard want to go storming to his room and grab the stake and finish this now—he knew how that would end. So instead he merely forced a smile.

"Why don't you all sit down," he said stiffly. The small table was set for five, the last place awkwardly crammed in on one side. His children were not stupid. They could sense that something was wrong, as if the air was standing on end, hackles raised. Each one of them trooped dutifully to their places, settling down with lowered gazes—except for Sigrid. Her eyes scarcely left Thranduil, watchful, distrusting.

Thranduil gestured to Bard's seat. "Sit down. I'll take care of the food."

Bard could scarcely protest without making a scene, so he settled down and gripped his hands in his lap as Thranduil lifted the pot and began serving them, one by one. The ironic smile remained plastered across his face—he knew how badly Bard wanted him away from his children, and he was enjoying that more than anything. As simply as that, Thranduil had slotted himself into Bard's family. Thranduil's eyes rose to meet Bard's as he ladled out a portion onto Tilda's plate. Bard felt a swell of nausea.

"Looks good," Thranduil commented wryly.

"Give your compliments to Chef Boyardee." Bard's own voice was disproportionately tense.

He could feel his children's stares boring into him, knew they wanted to know who the strange man sliding in to the seat beside him was. What could he possibly tell them? Everything about Thranduil was colored in shades of red, broken clocks and back alleys.

For all the tension in Bard's body, Thranduil could not have been more at ease. His shoulders crowded Bard, one of his knees brushing against Bard's under the table. Bard gritted his teeth and refused to move away, to give him that ground. Instead he merely picked up his fork and skewered a piece of ravioli on its metal tines.  

"What about your food?" Tilda asked as Bard lifted his fork. His eyes flicked to Thranduil's empty plate. He wouldn't eat. Of course he wouldn't.

"That's alright," Thranduil said, offering Tilda a warm smile. "I'm not hungry."

Tilda squinted at him dubiously. "If you aren't hungry, why are you having dinner with us?"

"I enjoy your father's company." The sly smile crept over his lips as his eyes slid over to Bard's. Bard scowled and stuffed the ravioli into his mouth, tasting nothing but heat, anger. Bain and Sigrid followed his lead, leaving nothing but the scraping of forks and knives. Underneath it, the silence screamed like a heated tea pot.

"So how did you two meet?" Sigrid asked with false casualness, her expression open with expectation.

"Work," Bard said at the exact same time as Thranduil said "On the road." 

Sigrid's eyes flashed from one to the other, her frown deepening.

Thranduil laughed it off, the sound surprisingly natural, nudging Bard with his shoulder. "No need to be embarrassed, Bard. Everyone's car breaks down sometimes, even a mechanic's." _Especially if someone punctures the gas tank_. Thranduil turned back to Sigrid. "Your father had some car trouble on the way home from work. I was driving by, offered to give him a ride. I figured someone else wasn't likely to come along for a while." Bard couldn't help but watch Thranduil's expressions with an air of faint astonishment. It was like watching a painter fill a blank canvas with color and motion—the dead, empty shell that had stood in his kitchen was becoming the man who had snared him in the first place.

"Then I guess I owe you a thank-you," Sigrid said, turning to Thranduil with a look that was more a challenge than an offer of gratefulness. "The roads around here can be dangerous at night."

Thranduil met it with a smile. "I only did what any good person would do," he said smoothly. "Your father was more than appreciative enough." Thranduil's eyes trailing over to Bard dragged up memories of exactly how appreciative Bard had been. 

"So how was school?" Bard asked loudly, before their conversation could stray any further. His eyes roved to each of his children. None of them seemed eager to speak—Sigrid was too busy sizing Thranduil up. "Bain, how was that math test? Did you do okay?"

"The test isn't until Friday," Bain said sullenly.

Bard's heart lurched in his chest. "I'm sorry. I must have gotten my days mixed up."

"That's alright. It looks like you have a lot going on for you right now," Bain said, shooting a pointed look at Thranduil.

Tilda took advantage of the pause to leap into the conversation. "We did pottery today in art class," she said around a mouthful of ravioli. "I made a pinch-pot. Tomorrow I get to paint it—I mean, I get to _glaze_ it. That's what they call it."

"Bard didn't mention he had an artist in the family," Thranduil said before Bard could speak.

Tilda flushed at the attention, a shy smile quirking her lips as she stared down the food on her plate. "I'm not that good," she mumbled.

"Oh come on, Tilda," Bain said. "You're better than anyone in this family. Sigrid can't even draw a stick-figure."

Normally that would have gotten a rise out of Bard's eldest, sending the conversation into the usual volley of arguments and jokes. Tonight Sigrid stayed quiet, and Bain's stab at normal conversation fell flat and dull. Bard had no difficulty imagining how this must look—an awkward dinner with dad's new 'friend'. Tilda would probably have no suspicions, but the older children would wonder. Thranduil was giving them little room for doubt, the way he kept looking at Bard, smiling at him, brushing against him casually. If Bard let himself, he could almost believe the lie, let himself be taken in by the warmth in Thranduil's eyes, pretend the worst thing that could happen in his life was his kids not liking his new partner. It was a tempting fantasy, even for a single meal.

"So, you two have known each other for a month," Sigrid said, as if she hadn't even been interrupted. Thranduil was an intruder here, and she was fighting him off like a virus in the bloodstream. Bard wished he could be proud of her. This was a battle he knew she couldn't win.

Thranduil's eyes slid over to Sigrid, slightly less amused. "A little longer than that. I find sometimes it doesn't take long to feel that you really _know_ a person."

"I totally agree," Sigrid replied meaningfully. "I'm a big believer in first impressions."

"Your dad raised you well." Thranduil turned back to Bard with a look that was far too mischievous for his liking. "What was your first impression of me, Bard?"

Bain rolled his eyes.

Bard could scarcely marshal his thoughts into a response. "I don't really remember, to be honest," he said vaguely.

"Oh, come on," Thranduil chided, leaning back in his seat. "I remember what I first thought of you.  Do you want to hear it?"

He met Thranduil's gaze, his stomach squirming unpleasantly. "Maybe some other time." He had nothing and Thranduil knew it. Thranduil had wormed his way directly into Bard's primary weak spot—sitting here, he was helpless. But Bard remembered the flicker of doubt that had passed across the other man's face earlier. Thranduil wasn't invulnerable. And the stake was in Bard's bedroom, scarcely thirty seconds away. All he needed was a reason to excuse himself.

His eyes trailed to Thranduil's coat. He was still wearing it—maybe he didn't even feel the heat or cold at all. The coat rack was at the end of the hall near the door, just past Bard's bedroom. It would take him less than a minute to get there and back—less than a minute Thranduil would be alone with his children. Bard knew it was long enough, long enough for anything to happen. But without a weapon, there was nothing stopping the worst from happening in front of him.

"Look at me, I'm being a terrible host," Bard said. "I didn't even take your coat. You must be burning up." Bard stood up. "Let me get that for you."

Thranduil's eyes narrowed ever so slightly, but his lips curved up. "It's quite alright. I hardly noticed."

Bard extended a hand, unflinching. "Please. I insist."

If he suspected something, Thranduil did nothing to prevent it. With a blithe smile, he shrugged out of the coat, Bard's hands helping it along. He unintentionally skimmed Thranduil's shoulders, sending a buzzing of pent-up energy through his fingertips. The fabric was still faintly warm from the man's body, stolen away from some poor anonymous person Bard would never know. Bard cast one last glance at his family, trying to ignore the hammering of his heart. He had already hesitated too long.

"Be right back," he said with a weak smile in their direction. "Tilda, why don't you tell everyone about the field trip to the art museum last week." Her face lit up—if her tireless monologues for days afterwards were anything to go by, that would buy Bard a good amount of time. There was no more time to delay. He needed that stake. It took all of his willpower to turn his back and walk out, leaving Thranduil with his children.

The hallway seemed to stretch infinitely in front of him as he hurried to the coat rack, unconsciously counting the seconds under his breath. He had tossed Thranduil's coat carelessly over one of the pegs and was turning to his bedroom door when a soft buzz from one of the pockets froze him in place. Thranduil had a phone. The idea had never so much as occurred to Bard, and the implications were dizzying. There were people Thranduil kept in contact with. Perhaps, even, people he had a weakness for.

From the dining room there was only silence. That was no guarantee that all was well, but when the buzz sounded again from Thranduil's pocket Bard knew he couldn’t ignore it. His children would have to hold on a little longer.

A quick search through Thranduil's coat turned up an old-fashioned flip phone. Bard snapped it open, text immediately appearing: _2 new messages from Tauriel_. A chill settled over Bard's skin as he wondered what kind of person would have Thranduil's number. He clicked through to read the messages, his ears straining for a short intake of breath from the other room, the clatter of a dropped utensil. There was nothing.

The two most recent messages were simple, yet esoteric: _He's moving through the capitol,_ and shortly afterwards _He didn't come alone. Meet me ASAP._ No other messages were on the phone—Thranduil must have deleted them as soon as he'd read them. With hands that trembled slightly, Bard pulled out his own phone and took a quick photo, capturing the messages, the name, and the phone number attached. It meant nothing to him, but he knew Thranduil wouldn't want him to see them and that was enough.

A moment later he plunged Thranduil's phone back into its original pocket and ducked into his bedroom. The drawer scraped open, the stake lay waiting inside. He stuffed it into the back of his jeans, partially under his shirt where it would be hidden from sight. He'd been gone too long, he realized. Thranduil would know something was wrong. God knew what he would do in retaliation. It would take Bard mere seconds to pull out the stake, but by then it might be too late. It was all he could do to stop himself from sprinting back to the dining room. Instead he walked as if nothing were wrong, his heart pounding dully with every measured footstep.

There was no blood, no sudden punch of terror as he crossed back into the dining room. His family were in their seats, Thranduil in his, at the head of the table beside Bard's place, or instead of it—his arm was thrown possessively over the back of Bard's chair, his lounging posture enough to make the rickety kitchen chair look like a throne. His eyes were fixed on Tilda, who seemed to have gotten over her shyness—she was still speaking excitedly, her hand gesticulating with a fork at every word. Bard could scarcely believe it, but Thranduil looked almost charmed.

"…and we got to see stuff by _Picasso,_ he's my favorite, I copied down as much as I could so I could look it up when I got back." Tilda hardly seemed to notice as Bard made his way back to his place at the table. Thranduil met his eyes with a quirk of his eyebrow. He didn't move his arm as Bard slid into the seat beside him.

"Which painting was your favorite?" Thranduil asked Tilda.

Her lips twisted pensively. "I can't pick one. I like them all for different reasons." Her face brightened. "There was a lady there who was copying one of the other paintings for practice. I want to do that someday."

Bard felt the tips of Thranduil's fingers playing across his arm, the gesture hidden and seemingly without intent. "When I was studying art, I spent hours in front of different canvases trying to learn the craft."

"You can paint?" Tilda said quickly. "Can you teach me?" The eagerness in her voice was painful.

"That's probably not a good idea," Bard said quickly. He wouldn't give Thranduil the excuse to keep seeing her. The fact that the two of them seemed to get along at all was already concerning enough.

Tilda's face immediately crumpled into a pout at Bard's quick veto, but Thranduil tilted his head in her direction with a smile. "Maybe another time."

Sigrid, whose face was tight with tension, cleared her throat."Have you been in this area for long, Thranduil?" Bard couldn't shake how strange it was to hear that name out of her mouth."I don't think I've seen you around here."

Thranduil's arm slid off the back of Bard's chair at last, his fingers lacing on the table in front of him as he met Sigrid's stare head-on. "Perhaps you've simply noticed me before." His voice was cool.

"It's a small town. And you're pretty noticeable."

Thranduil tilted his head acquiescingly. "I've been here for about a month."

"About when you met my dad." It wasn't a question.

"That's right. I met him on the day I arrived."

"And where are you staying?" Sigrid asked, relentless. "I didn't think any of the houses around here sold."

"They didn't." Bard could hear the note of irritation in Thranduil's voice. It only spurred his daughter onward.

She smiled with cold triumph. "So you're staying at a motel, then. Just passing through?"

"That was originally my intent. But your father has been showing me around, and I've discovered this town isn't without its charms."

"Oh?" Sigrid said with a raise of her eyebrows. "I wouldn't think there'd be anything here to tempt someone like you."

Bard nearly flinched, expecting Thranduil to bristle at the implication, but he merely smiled. "Oh, I wouldn't say that. The bar proved to be an interesting spot of local color."

"You two were at Dale's?" Bain asked, his eyebrows raised. "Wow, dad. That place is pretty skeevy."

"What's Dale's?" Tilda piped up curiously.

"Some dive bar," Bain said before Bard could intercede.

"Da was at a _bar?_ " Tilda cried, shooting him an incredulous look.

"I'm a legal adult, last time I checked," Bard said defensively. Of all the times for his children to fall into their normal habits. He knew Thranduil was staring at him, and he knew that his children could see that as well. "It was a one-time thing."

"Apparently not," Bain muttered, the sideway glance towards Thranduil completely unnecessary. Thranduil didn't miss it either. He paused. From the look on his face, Bard knew that whatever he was about to say in response was going to be bad. Bard wasn't ready to hear what he might have to say about this being a 'one time thing', and his family wasn't either. Before Thranduil so much as opened his mouth, Bard set his utensils down with a clatter.

"Dinner's over," he said shortly.

"I'm still hungry," Bain snapped.

"Then you can bring it up to your room," Bard said. The rare treat of eating in his room was enough to stop Bain's protests. He took his plate and utensils and hurried out of the room, shooting one last look over his shoulder. Tilda followed shortly after, creeping after her brother with nervous steps. She paused in the doorway, a hesitant smile splitting her lips. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Thranduil," she said shyly.

"And you," Thranduil replied. "Good luck on your pinch pot." Bard resisted the urge to settle his head into his hands as Tilda scurried away. Sigrid made no motion to stand up and carry off her plate as her sibling's footsteps trooped up the stairs. Bard's heart sunk.

"You too, Sigrid," he said, as gently as he could.

But Sigrid wasn't looking at him. Her eyes were fixed on Thranduil, arms crossed over her chest, a cold smile on her face. All that would have completed the image would be a shotgun across her lap. She was posed to intimidate. Bard couldn't admire her steel, not now. Not when she didn't know what exactly it was she was up against. The tension in the room thickened like gathering clouds, and all he could do was sit.

"I meant to ask you," she said with a falsely casual tone. "What is it you do, exactly?"

Thranduil smiled. "I'm between jobs at the moment. Looking for something new."

"Doing a lot of travelling, then."

"Yes."

"Where were you going?"

Thranduil blinked. "What?"

She met his eyes fearlessly. "Like you said, not many people travel these roads. There's not much out past our house than more trees—nothing to interest someone just passing through. So what were you doing out there that night when my dad's car broke down?"

A beat of silence. "Why do you ask?" Thranduil asked, shifting his position so subtly that no one but Bard, who was so close he could feel the rasp of their shirts against each other, would notice it. Coiling like a snake, ready to strike. Bard knew too well what that meant. Heart beating faster, he moved his own hand slowly, opening his fingers and sliding it into a position where he could easily reach the stake pressing into the small of his back. If it came down to it, he wasn't sure he could be fast enough.

Sigrid shrugged callously. "Just seems like an odd coincidence, is all."

"Are you accusing me of lying?"

Bard's pulse jumped. "Sigrid—"

"No, Bard, let her speak," Thranduil said, cutting him off with a raised hand. Where before his eyes had seemed drawn to Bard with every word, they were now fixed on Sigrid. "I'd like to hear what she has to say." Bard was sure of it now. By the time Thranduil moved it would be too late—he would have to stake him first, in front of Sigrid, and hope he didn't miss. If he couldn't diffuse the situation first.

Sigrid leaned back in her chair. "There's not much in this town to interest outsiders. No real job opportunities or local landmarks. Nothing to draw someone here whose looking for 'something new'. So why are you still here?"

 _Get out of my house_. The meaning undercut every one of Sigrid's words. Thranduil was being cast out, rejected. Well, he had warned Bard what would happen if he was pushed away again.

There wasn't time. Bard felt Thranduil tense, felt the intent gathering in his  muscles with the slow, indulgent smile on his face. He was going to kill her if Bard didn't do something. The stake was still too far away—the sudden movement would be the only warning Thranduil would need. He had to stop this some other way.

Thranduil began to lean forward.

It was Bard's hand that moved, not towards the stake but to Thranduil, sliding under the table unseen fIto rest just above his knee. He felt Thranduil go rigid with surprise. It was the first time Bard had touched him on his own volition since the alley. Bard didn't withdraw, his jaw tight, his grip tight as if he could restrain Thranduil through that contact alone. He knew his fingers were laying something down that was either a promise or a warning, or both. Whatever it was, it held Thranduil fast.

A moment later Bard felt the tension ease out of Thranduil's body, his smile losing its edge. He did not look at Bard. "I'm here for your father," he said at last. The words left a pit in Bard's stomach. "That's the only answer I can give you."

Sigrid's jaw had clenched at his words, but she'd gotten what she wanted. Her eyes turned to Bard's now. "Da, can I talk to you for a minute?"

Without a glance at Thranduil, Bard nodded mutely.

Thranduil chuckled, rising to his feet with languid grace and sliding away from Bard's contact as if it hadn't been there at all. The anger as brittle as glass was gone now. "Of course," he purred. As he moved, he leaned in to press a soft, chaste kiss to Bard's cheek that left it burning, the last drop of poison in the wound. The price of Sigrid's safety. "Take your time." He did not spare Sigrid another glance as he left the room, wandering down the hallway until he reached Bard's bedroom. The door closed behind him with a click, leaving Sigrid and Bard alone.

Neither of them commented on the fact that Thranduil knew which room was his.

"Da, what the hell was that?" Sigrid said, her voice low and fraught with tension.

Bard was too tired to correct her language. He wanted to sink into one of the chairs and set his head on the table, let himself slump into nothingness. Instead he could only stand there, unable to meet his daughter's eye.

"I'm sorry, Sigrid. I can't talk about this now."

He saw her posture shift, her arms cross over her chest protectively. When her voice came next it was edged with hurt. "Are you _seeing_ that man? Romantically?"

"No," Bard said too quickly. "It's not like that."

"Isn't it? Then how do you explain—?" she cut herself off, gesturing to the now-empty table. When Bard finally brought himself to look at her, he felt as if he had been skewered through the chest. Her eyes were wide, full of confusion and no small amount of anger. "He practically had his hands all over you the entire meal. Is this how you thought it would be a good idea to break it to Tilda and Bain?"

"No, Sigrid, of course not—I just…" Bard trailed off. There was nothing to say. Either he told his daughter the truth, which was both ridiculous and impossible—or he simply accepted that his children now believed he was dating. In the end, it was the lesser evil. But no less sickening.

Sigrid looked at him, the anger abating slightly. "I'm sorry," she said quieter. "I'm glad that you're trying to find someone else—really, I am," she said as Bard tried to protest. "You've been alone since Ma died, and you deserve to be happy."

Bard felt the bile rise in the back of his throat.

"But this guy…" Sigrid shook her head. "I don't like him. Something about him is _wrong._ I know you said to give people a chance, but this time I really don't want to. I'm sorry, Da. That's just the truth."

Bard nodded helplessly. There was nothing he could say to that, no protests. "Thank you for telling me."

Sigrid's eyes fixated on him. There was something far too perceptive in that stare. "You met Thranduil over a month ago. That was about the time you sprained your wrist, and started getting really paranoid."

"Coincidence," Bard said. The look on Sigrid's face was of a swimmer realizing they had gone just a little too far from the shore, and could no longer feel the ocean floor beneath their feet. Her eyes trailed in the direction of Bard's bedroom, where they knew Thranduil was waiting for him. Perhaps he was even listening to every word they said.

"Are you going to be okay?" Sigrid asked very carefully.

Bard knew that the wrong move or word here would doom them. He couldn't afford to have Sigrid feel suspicious, and risk provoking Thranduil into eliminating those suspicions in his own way. So he forced himself to smile, crossing the distance between him and his daughter to settle his hands on her shoulders.

"Everything's fine," he said gently. "I know this may seem strange, but Thranduil, he…" Bard swallowed roughly. "He's not as bad as he seems."

Sigrid watched his face carefully. After a moment, she nodded. "Alright. I trust you."

Her words sent a pang of anguish through him. All he did was smile and squeeze her shoulders gently before letting his arms fall.

"Thank you," was all he could manage.

Sigrid stood quietly for a moment before stepping away. "I'm going to go check on Tilda and Bain," Sigrid said quietly. What she would tell them, Bard couldn't be sure. She turned way, and he watched her receding back until it disappeared through the door. Her footsteps creaked up the steps, and then there was silence.

Bard covered his face with his hands as soon as she had left, letting a massive sigh heave past his fingers. The tension in his body throughout all of dinner threatened to boil over—how, he didn’t know. His instincts told him to run, to leave the house and get in the car and just drive. That wasn't an option. Thranduil was waiting for him.

He made his way down the hallway, his own bedroom door open only a crack. Beyond it there was only darkness—Thranduil had not turned on a light. Bard stopped just outside, his heart pounding in his chest. He could feel the stake pressing into his back, its presence reassuring. He'd made it this far.

He pushed the door open.

Thranduil stood with his hands clasped behind his back, staring out the open window. Moonlight fell through the open slats in the blinds, painting faint grey lines across the floor. Thranduil's shadow eclipsed them, a dark shape on a hazy background.  He did not turn as Bard came in.

After a moment's pause, Bard closed the door behind him. The gentle click drew Thranduil's eye, his head turning slowly to regard Bard from his peripheral vision.

"Is this the part where we tell each other about our days?" Bard said quietly. The anger was coming back now. His children weren't here to hold him back. "Or are you done playing house for the night?"

Thranduil chuckled softly. "You have a lovely family," he said, turning back to the window. "That Sigrid is a sharp one. I imagine she saw right through me."

His broad back was completely open. Bard wondered how much force he would need to drive a stake through the layers of muscle and bone. Was he strong enough? Fast enough? He might not get a better chance than this. Yet this was different from pulling the trigger of a gun. More personal. More visceral. He imagined he would feel the breath driven out of Thranduil's body, the wetness of stolen blood in his veins. The thought made a different sort of nausea twist in his stomach, but he fought it down. The kiss he had pressed to Bard's cheek still stung. Thranduil wasn't human—wasn't even a person. He had to remember that. His fingers slid behind him to the small of his back, touched the rough wooden surface tucked into his waistband, gripped it firmly.

"Nice woodworking." Thranduil had not so much as turned, but his voice froze Bard in place. "I was looking at that stake you're holding earlier—I would have chosen oak myself, but of course it's harder to carve. The point could stand to be sharper, unless of course you're confident in your own strength." Now Thranduil did turn, as inevitably as the rotation of a planet. His face was blank. "Do you feel ready to test it?"

Bard raised the stake between them, a defensive gesture rather than a threatening one. Thranduil smirked humorlessly. "You're going to want to do it from the front. It's harder to miss that way. The heart's right here, by the way." He tapped the center of his chest. "Not too far to the left. They always make that mistake."

A moment passed. The lines of moonlight crept over the floor like fat, ashen slugs. Bard knew that he had no hope of killing Thranduil now, not without the element of surprise. The anger fizzled in his veins, collapsed in defeat. There would be another time. Bard smiled indulgently, as if Thranduil had told a good joke, and turned to set the stake on his dresser. It settled there, as absurdly conspicuous as a display in a museum. When he turned back, Thranduil raised an eyebrow.

"Good choice."

Bard snorted, crossing his arms over his chest. "Not a choice at all really."

Thranduil smiled. "You're learning. But do you understand what I'm trying to teach?"

Bard stared at him, feeling that dull anger railing against him like  battering ram. What did he want? Affection? Antagonism? Simple, blind obedience? Bard studied his face, searching for a sign. None was forthcoming. "Enlighten me."

Thranduil turned away, began wandering the room with idle steps. "You ignored me last night, Bard," he murmured. "You saw me outside, and you turned away. That tells me you haven't truly grasped the situation here: there is no part of your life that is still your own."

"Would you rather I came running whenever you wanted me, like a dog?"

Thranduil paused by the squat bookshelf, running a finger down the spines. "Why wouldn't I want that?"

"Because you would get bored." That drew Thranduil's eye. "You may have the strength and the leverage to make me do whatever you want—but you aren't going to. That's the whole point of this, isn't it? To see what I'll do. So you might as well stop acting like you're the only one holding cards here."

Thranduil tilted his head. The smile was gone, but his expression held something more thoughtful. "Your children—"

"—Would end my cooperation as soon as you laid a finger on them," Bard gritted out. "You know that too. So if you're planning on hurting my kids, you better make sure you're through with me first. And I don't think you are, not yet."

Thranduil held his hands in front of him. "You have nothing to bargain with, Bard. In the end it's all a moot point."

Bard narrowed his eyes. He remembered the phone. "And what about Tauriel?"

Thranduil stiffened, shock flickering across his face. "Where did you hear that name?"

Now Bard smiled, his arms crossed over his chest. "Maybe I know more than you give me credit for."

Thranduil's eyes narrowed. "Or maybe you were digging through my phone's messages while you took so long putting my coat away."

Bard shrugged. "So who are they? A friend of yours?"

"She is no one that concerns you."

"I'm making myself concerned."

Thranduil sighed in aggravation. "You're being needlessly difficult, Bard."

Bard pointed to the door. He knew he shouldn't risk antagonizing Thranduil, but he found he couldn't stop himself."If I irritate you, by all means leave."

Thranduil's lips twisted ruefully at that. He stepped forward, and for a moment Bard's breath halted in his chest—but then Thranduil moved past him, meandering over to the dresser. Bard turned to watch him inspecting the stake Bard had left there, his expression out of sight. "All you need to know of Tauriel is that she is one of mine, and will do you no harm unless I ask her to."

So that answered one question, then: Thranduil was not the only one of his kind. "How many of you are there?" Bard asked after a moment.

"Many." Thranduil paused. When he turned back to Bard his expression was inscrutable. "Fewer now."

Bard turned to follow him as Thranduil continued his pacing. "And do all of you choose to torment people like this?"

"No. Most of them prefer to kill and feed with little discretion."

"But not you."

Thranduil inclined his head. "But not me." It was clear he planned on saying no more.

Bard looked away. The silence fattened between them. "Before, you said you had never chosen wrong before. I'm not the first person you've done this to am I?" Thranduil shook his head. Bard felt the realization sinking into him—that he wasn't the first, and wouldn't be the last. "How many?"

"No more than ten." The words were like a physical blow to Bard's chest. All those other people like him, separated by time, all heading towards the same end. He felt as if their weight was dragging him down after them. Thranduil raised an eyebrow. "That upsets you. Were you hoping you were the only one?" He smiled. "Were you hoping you were special?"

"No," Bard snapped.

Thranduil chuckled. "Believe me, I choose very carefully. And so far, you have proven to be the most entertaining of them all."

Shoulders stiff with tension, Bard refused to give a rise. "What happened to the others?"

"They died."

Bard snorted humorlessly. "You killed them, you mean."

Thranduil looked thoughtful. "Not all. There was a select few that I sired."

The word sent a thrill of something cold through Bard's blood. "Sired?"

"Made like me."

The cold sunk deep into his bones at the implication. "You would force that on someone?"

Thranduil looked at him sharply. "I gave them a choice. Only the foolish or the needlessly cruel sire an unwilling vampire. It is uncommon for a fledgling to kill its sire, though not uncommon for them to try. By creating a vampire from an unwilling victim, you are giving great power and an immortal existence to a creature which will undoubtedly hate you. Our kind tends to cherish our grudges."

"And is that what you're going to do to me?" Bard asked quietly.

Thranduil laughed. "I admit that I've thought about it. But of course, you would have to earn it." Thranduil wandered around the bed, his fingers trailing across the blankets idly. When he turned back to Bard his eyes glinted hungrily.

"The bond between a new vampire and its sire is deeply intimate. I've thought about what it would be like to feel you for the first time," he murmured, sending the hairs standing on the back of Bard's neck. "To know your thoughts as well as my own, and leave no part of you that wasn't mine." He settled back onto the edge of the bed, crossing his legs in front of him.

"You never forget your first kill," he murmured, a wistful air in his voice. "The first time you pierce human skin. The sudden rush of blood, almost more than you can bear. The raw, helpless need." Despite the distance between them, Bard felt something twisting in the pit of his stomach that wasn't nearly as horrified as he would have liked. Thranduil's voice was sending jolts of something hot and hurried from the scar on his neck, something in his blood lunging forward. It was impossible to ignore. And God, part of him didn't want to.

"I want to feel those things in you," Thranduil said, his fingers running across the surface of the bedspread. "I could show you how to do it. Feed right beside you, feel you give in and lose control with me, taste death at the very same time. Would you like that, Bard?"

Bard's nails were digging into his palms. "You can't possibly expect me to say that I would."

Thranduil shrugged. "And you don't have to. Not yet. But you'll have plenty of time to make up your mind."

The implication hung. That Thranduil would be around long enough for him to change his mind. That Bard would eventually say yes. He repressed a shudder. "Why did the others agree? Why would anyone want that?"

"Is it really so strange? Immortal youth, inhuman power. These are things humans have killed for time and time again, and futilely." Thranduil paused. "But it wasn't simply those allures which drew them. They all came to love me, in their own ways."

"And you repay that love by killing them."

"They never expected anything else. Neither should you."

Bard laughed bitterly. "So you expect me to simply live my life normally, knowing you're going to kill me—or worse?"

"You always knew you were going to die—I'm simply informing you of exactly when and how. I'm not proposing to kill you tomorrow. It's entirely possible that you'll live to see Tilda graduate from high school, Bain get married, Sigrid make it to Broadway. You'll simply be doing those things with me in your shadow."

"That's a long shadow to cast."

"Is it truly so terrible?" He leaned forward, eyes lazily sliding down Bard's body. "I could make you feel good, if you asked me to. Would you want that?"

Bard's mouth felt dry, his throat sealed closed. His body was as useless as a carcass hooked and frozen in a meat locker. He wished he could have told himself that Thranduil repelled him, that the sight of him on the bed made his skin crawl. The fact was, that would be a lie. He knew Thranduil would have no trouble crossing the small distance between them. He was less sure what would happen if Thranduil beckoned him forward. But he remained still, and Thranduil's smile turned away knowingly. Not tonight, he seemed to say. But Thranduil was not the kind to be kept waiting for long.

"Where you given a choice?" Bard wasn't sure where his voice came from, or the question. Thranduil seemed mildly surprised as well, perhaps even caught off guard. "When you were turned," Bard clarified, pursuing that line of thought out of the place his mind had been threatening to go. "Did you get the same choice you give to others?"

Thranduil seemed to consider whether or not to answer. "Yes," he said eventually. "I had a choice. Though perhaps, if I had known—" He cut himself off.

"Who turned you?" Bard urged. He suddenly felt as if he was on the edge of something important, some piece of information he knew he would need.

But he had asked the wrong question. The off-balance expression on Thranduil's face vanished. "It was a long time ago," he said stiffly. "She died."

As little as Thranduil may have intended to give away, Bard could hear the pain in his voice. _He cared about her_ , Bard realized with a start. He hadn't thought Thranduil capable of that kind of emotion. Bard leaned forward. "I thought your kind live forever."

"Not if they're killed." Thranduil stood up suddenly. There was no slow menace in his motions now—only a cold wall. Bard had struck a nerve, it seemed. Thranduil scarcely paid him a glance. "I will call on you again, and soon. If I catch you going through my phone again, I'll remove one of your hands." Bard did not doubt him, or the ringing silence in his wake. As he brushed past Bard towards the door, he paused. "Don't forget what you are."

Bard raised an eyebrow, recalling Thranduil's words from before. "A distraction?"

Thranduil stared at him. For a moment Bard thought he was going to say something else, something other than a promise of terror or violence. No words came. The look in his eyes was dangerous, and Bard didn't flinch. He was expecting a touch, a blow, even a kiss—some gesture of possession. But Thranduil turned and walked away, a sentence trailed off in the middle. As he opened the door and left without looking, Bard couldn't help but feel as if something had fallen flat, the tension in his body finding no release. It was only when he heard the front door click closed that he could truly believe Thranduil was gone at all.

Bard's eyes trailed out the window. The moon was half-lit, a brimming white bowl, and beneath it there was no sign of anyone. The house was quiet. Upstairs he knew his children would still be awake, full of questions he couldn't answer. He would face them in the morning, try and bring his family back onto stable ground. They would manage it together. They always had before.

He sank onto the edge of the bed, still processing the memory of Thranduil sitting here just moments earlier. The thought didn't disturb him as it should have. His heartbeat slowed over time, his hands relaxing in front of him. He wasn't safe. He was smart enough to realize that. But he'd found something better than safety.

He remembered the look on Thranduil's face as he talked about the one who had created him—and the look on his face in the kitchen, that momentary glimpse of weakness.  Thranduil knew fear, it seemed. And he had also known love. If Thranduil had made one thing clear to him, it was that loved ones were the greatest weakness a person could have. There was a reason Thranduil believed that, something dark and painful in his past. Bard intended to find that weak spot—and twist it.

 


	7. Chapter 7

Perhaps it wasn't surprising that Thranduil was an expert at carving stakes. His kind had little to fear from mortals; there were few enough of them that knew what waited outside the lamplight, and those that did were easily avoided. The greatest danger to his species came from within. He had learned how to defend himself accordingly.

The knife in his right hand slid easily down the wooden spike in his left, shaving paper thin layers of wood away with every motion. The point was dagger-sharp; it would take little effort to drive it through flesh. Between the ribs was key; but of course, with his strength, bone made little difference.

It was funny, in a way, how a thousand years of predation could be put to rest with a single wooden splinter. Many vampires preferred fire, decapitation, and a few more unexpected methods when it came to killing each other. Thranduil liked stakes. They were simple. He had lived a very, very long time, but in all those years he had never let himself forget that his end lay at the point of a sharpened stick. That was one of the reasons he had survived for this long.

He tossed the completed stake to his feet, where it landed with a clatter among its fellows. A small pile was growing beside him, the work of a restless day. He was lit only by a small bulb hanging from the ceiling of the storage unit he had rented, and remained in since sunrise; it was mostly empty, its purpose to provide a safe place to spend the daylight hours in case his apartment wasn't safe. He'd set up a series of bolt holes around the area, abandoned houses sun-proofed, chains and locks hidden near tool sheds he might need to hide in. He hoped he wouldn't need any of them. Something told him that he would. The apartment hadn't felt right when he had tried to bed down for the day. He was getting restless; there was blood in the water, and he was no longer the shark.

The sound of footsteps came from just outside the storage unit. Thranduil did not react, even as someone gripped the door and pulled it up off the ground, letting the first taste of the cool night inside. Tauriel stood before him, her hand lingering on the handle above her, an eyebrow raised at the pile of stakes. "Someone's been busy."

Thranduil picked up another length of wood, inspected it for imperfections before beginning to sharpen the point. "Merely a precaution."

Tauriel stepped inside, pulling the door down behind her. She leaned against it lightly, her arms crossed over her chest. "I finished up with your other 'precautions' a few minutes ago."

Thranduil nodded, watching the pieces of bark curl away to reveal the pale wood beneath. "And?"

"And there are now enough weapons hidden in the woods around Bard's house to arm a small militia," Tauriel replied. "Which, in my opinion, is a tad excessive."

"Thankfully, your opinion is neither required nor wanted," Thranduil said, perhaps too icily. He heard Tauriel chuckle under her breath, shift her position slightly.

"You're very fond of this one," she observed. Thranduil did not dignify it with a response. "Humans are all the same to me. I don't know what you see in them."

"Don't forget that we come from them," Thranduil said. Chips of wood flicked from the point of his knife to the floor. "We are faster, stronger, longer-lived, but in the end we rely on humans to survive. If all of our kind went extinct, they would live on—we cannot say the same."

Tauriel looked away; she wouldn't see the importance in Thranduil's words. He sighed. "One day, Tauriel, you should choose a human you like well enough, and devote a few weeks to draining them. Once you've felt that connection, felt their blood inside of you until you know their every emotion and intention, then you might understand." The key was to draw it out. Draining a human on the first try could lend the feeling of life, but keeping them alive, drinking them slowly over a period of days, weeks, even longer—then the true connection could form. Thranduil remembered the first time he'd attempted it. More than anything, he remembered what it was to _feel_ his victim die, from the inside and out. There were few things better.

Tauriel shook her head. "I'm happy with what I am," she replied, plucking a stake from the pile to test its point. "I don't need to borrow a human's feelings just to feel alive."

Thranduil shrugged. "For now. You are young."

Tauriel looked at him shrewdly. "I don't know if you plan to turn Bard, but if you drink from him for long enough you'll feel his emotions as keenly as I feel yours. And, by the way, I _do_ feel them, no matter how you try to hide." She raised her eyebrows meaningfully. "It's dangerous enough for both of us to remain together, but at least we can offer each other protection. If Smaug comes and you're wrapped up in some human's head—"

"I know what's at stake," Thranduil said shortly. "I won't let Smaug send shrinking and cowering like some frightened animal."

"There's a difference between cowering and a calculated retreat," Tauriel insisted. "My sources tell me that Smaug has rallied a good number of his own to the hunt. There could be hundreds of them swarming across the country, looking for us or others like us." She stepped forward. Thranduil met her gaze. "If his hunters find us here, we'll be hard pressed to defend ourselves. There's a good chance that we won't be able to protect Bard as well. You would do better to distance yourself from him."

Thranduil resisted the urge to grind his teeth. He knew Tauriel could see through most of his emotions, no matter how skillfully he cloaked them from her. There were times when she seemed to know him better than he did himself, and would not hesitate to use that knowledge against him. But in this case, she seemed almost hesitant. With a single smooth stroke, he pared the wooden chunk in half. "Yes, I'm fond of Bard," he said offhandedly. "He's provided me with ample entertainment. I will not easily allow Smaug or any of his followers to take something which is mine." Thranduil paused in his work. "But the moment Bard becomes a liability, I will not hesitant to leave him to his fate."

Tauriel smirked. "You never were one to shirk from being ruthless."

Thranduil raised an eyebrow. "You think I should show more compassion?"

"Why feign something you're incapable of in the first place?" Tauriel chuckled, pocketing the stake she'd selected. "Besides, your lack of empathy has always been one of your redeeming qualities."

Thranduil set the knife and stake down beside him. Suddenly, the rasp of splitting wood had become unbearable. If Tauriel noted that he had not responded to her comment, she said nothing of it. After a brief moment of consideration, he selected the best of the stakes from the pile and slipped it partially into a back pocket. Tauriel was watching him carefully, and he knew she would feel any bitterness he allowed to slip through. If he even felt such things. After all, Tauriel was right. He'd long since abandoned any desire for sympathy.

"I suggest you whittle some stakes of your own," he said calmly. "Keep an ear to the ground, and an eye on the tree line." He stepped past her, leaned down to yank the door open once again.

"Thranduil," she said as he stepped outside. "If Smaug's hunters find us, what will we do?"

Thranduil looked back at her, face expressionless. "If they find us, we'll kill them before they can breathe a word we're here." He hoped that was ruthless enough for her. He knew she expected nothing different.

As he drove away from the harsh white streetlights and the rows of doors in the story facilities, he found himself thinking back on his last meeting with Bard. He had planned to have him that night, whether it was in blood or body or both. But he hadn't—he had scarcely touched him. It wasn't that he hadn't wanted to. He'd felt that need stronger than ever, the desire to consume and be consumed like a bright burning flame in his gut. Yet he hadn't acted on it.

He squeezed the wheel with a sigh he would never allow anyone else to hear. He'd slid into Bard's life to assert his control, to remind him what was at stake. But sitting at his table, talking to his children—it threw Thranduil off balance in a way he hadn't anticipated. Unbidden, the memory of Bard's hand sliding over his knee leapt to mind. The gesture had been so simple, yet it had stopped Thranduil as effectively as grabbing the scruff of a dog. He had no illusions about Bard's feelings for him. There was attraction there, yes, as much as the man might deny it; but Bard would kill him if Thranduil gave him the opportunity, and likely feel no remorse. The motion was a calculated move, a gesture of intimacy and affection meant to bring Thranduil under his control. What truly bothered him was the fact that it had worked.

The drive through the woods was short and uneventful, the same he had made many times already. But something seemed off in the air that came rolling in through the open window, like a faint smell or cold draft that only touched at the edges of Thranduil's consciousness. The sense of a trap closing in around him, and the hunters not far behind. For all his agitation, there was only one place he wanted to be.

He pulled up outside of Bard's house, noting with satisfaction that Tauriel's scent still hung on the air. As loathe as he was to have her near Bard's presence, he was grateful she had done her job. He couldn't defend this territory he'd staked out for himself alone. The tension in his body seemed to hum as he approached the house. He wanted to see Bard, let himself be grounded in something as real as the coppery taste of blood on this tongue, the feeling of warmth under his fingertips.

He vaulted easily up the short stairs to the porch, and found the door unlocked with the porch light on. Without a thought he turned the handle and stepped inside, closing it after himself. The hallway waited in front of him, quiet and still. Bard's bedroom to the left was empty, and remembering where he'd found the man before, Thranduil strode to the end of the hall where he knew he'd find the kitchen. Soft voices drifted past the doorway. Thranduil followed them without so much as listening.

As he rounded the doorway, he came to a sudden stop on the threshold. Two of Bard's children, the young girl and the boy, were sitting at the kitchen table with papers and a plate of pizza rolls spilled out before them. The girl, Tilda, was drawing; Bain seemed to be doing some kind of math. Both their heads snapped up the second Thranduil stepped through the door, sharing an expression of surprise. Thranduil froze, suddenly unsure of what to do. He hadn't thought to expect anyone but Bard here. A foolish lapse in judgment. He kept his face smooth and expressionless all the same.

"Hi," Bain said warily, still fighting past his surprise.

"Are you here for our Da?" Tilda asked.

Thranduil finally found his voice. "Is he upstairs?"

"He's still at work," Bain said, a nervous edge creeping into his voice. Thranduil made no effort to put him at ease. "I don't know when he'll be back."

Thranduil had been so distracted he hadn't noticed the other car was missing. Bard out of the house after dark—that was new. Clearly he was growing more bold. Thranduil should do something about that. But for now, his two children were staring at him with expectant looks, and he found he had no idea what to do or say. "It's getting late."

"Sigrid's doing dinner," Bain said to his pencil.

"Are you going to stay until he gets back?" Tilda asked, in a tone that could have almost been hopeful.

Thranduil shook his head. His skin seemed to crawl over his bones, urging him to get back out into the night and onto familiar ground. "I think not. I would hate to intrude."

"Had no problem with it last time," Bain muttered under his breath.

For a moment, Thranduil considered which would hurt worse: asking Bain if his mother had raised him to be so rude before Tilda had killed her, or simply breaking both of his arms. But before he could open his mouth, something in the back of his brain forced its way into the forefront. Frowning, he looked to the oven and took a deep breath. He pointed at it, turning a cold glance on Bain. "That's burning."

Bain and Tilda both looked up, and a second later Bain had leapt from his seat and hurried over to the oven. The second he cracked it open a fat gush of grey smoke came rolling out of the oven, quickly filling the air. A moment later, the fire alarm began to chirp.

"Crap crap crap crap _crap crap_ —" The frantic words accompanying Sigrid's footsteps skipping the stairs announced her just before she sprinted into the room. She brushed past Thranduil without even seeing him, grabbing a towel and buffeting away the smoke. Tilda was waiting with a pair of oven mitts for her sister, and as Sigrid grabbed the offending dish and immediately swung it over to the sink, Bain was ready to turn the tap on. The casserole extinguished itself with an ashy fizzle, as black flakes swirled down the drain. Without pause, Sigrid yanked a chair up to the wall and stood on her toes, giving the fire alarm a short thwack with the flat of her hand that immediately stopped its crying.

Sigrid heaved a sigh, climbing off the chair and staring at the smoking remains of the casserole. "Well. So much for trying something other than TV dinners."

Thranduil watched all of this from the background, vaguely impressed. The children clearly had their system down to an art form. He wondered how many nights Bard had spent working late, how many burned dinners they'd had to cope with by themselves.

When it became clear his presence had gone unnoted, he loudly cleared his throat. "Perhaps times have changed, but I really don't think punching the smoke detector exhibits proper fire safety," he commented dryly.

Sigrid whirled around at the sound of his voice, her hair in a disheveled bun and her eyes wide an accusing. "How did you get in here?"

Thranduil shifted his posture, crossing his arms over his chest and raising his chin with a cool smile. "If you want to keep people out, you should really start locking your doors."

"Most people knock," Sigrid shot back, crossing her arms over her chest.

"No one answered." The lie came automatically, and Thranduil immediately cursed himself. He did not owe any sort of explanation to a gaggle of impudent children.

"Well, I don't know when Da is going to be home," Sigrid said, turning to scrape the remains of dinner into the trash. "You'd be better off coming back tomorrow."

 _Or not at all, if she had her way._ If Bard had been with them, Thranduil might have devoted more time to intimidation. The children didn't fear him as they should. Tilda was too young, Bain's teenage invincibility complex would override any warnings his brain stem might have offered up—out of all of them, Sigrid should have sensed what he was. But she more than any stood tall in front of him, met his gaze without fear. Someday perhaps he would see how steely she could be when missing half her fingernails. But not tonight. Tonight, it was Bard he wanted.

"Then I will," he said smoothly

"Wait," Tilda said, scurrying back over to her seat. "Before you go, can you tell me if these drawings are okay? You said you were good at art."

Before Thranduil could assent she was shoving sheaths of paper under his nose, and he found himself accepting them. Thranduil glanced over at Sigrid, who was staring at him with an expression of outright hostility as she scraped at the blackened remains of dinner with a knife. Clearly she expected him to fail somehow. The thought that he was being judged by someone little more than a child herself set his teeth on edge.

"This one I tried to copy from one of the paintings at the museum," Tilda was saying, "and this one I looked up some stuff online, and this is a drawing I did of Bain's action figures—"

"They're my friend's," Bain said gruffly from across the table, his ears turning pink.

"Anyways," Tilda said, crossing her small arms over her chest. "Are they any good?"

Thranduil stared at the papers with a distant feeling of confusion. He didn't understand what Tilda could want from him. His first instinct was to tell her that if Tilda was to show her work to a master at the time when Thranduil learned the craft, she would be laughed out of the country. Instead he forced a smile.

"Adequate," he said, setting them back down on the table. Sigrid coughed pointedly, and when he met her gaze she was staring at him with raised eyebrows. He glanced back to Tilda's face, which had caved-in ever so slightly. "And keep practicing, I suppose," he said stiffly. "You'll get there." It wasn't that he cared for the child. Winning them over was merely the smart thing to do. He could make one small allowance to his dignity if it granted his easy passage in and out of this house.

"Why don't you go draw more of Bain's action figures, Tilda?" Sigrid suggested, sweeping over with a falsely bright smile.

Tilda squinted at the drawings in front of her with a small frown. "Maybe," she said, staring down at them in disappointment. A moment later she had tossed them aside, slid back into her chair with its cushioned stacked so she could comfortably reach the table, and grabbed another piece of paper. "Hold still, Bain," she said, glancing from him to the blank page before making the first strokes. "I'm going to draw you."

"Hang on," Bain complained. He was glancing from Tilda to Thranduil, his fingers tapping his pencil against the page. "Are you any good at math?"

Thranduil raised an eyebrow.

It was strange, he reflected as he squinted over the line of figures on the paper Bain presented him with, how tenuous his hold over humans could be at times. Adults were easy to manipulate; they either saw what he was or what he wanted them to see, and both were equally convincing. Children were a different matter. They were volatile, and demanding, and as it turned out, not particularly good at geometry. All the same, they could be useful to him. If he had the loyalty of Bard's children, it was merely one more piece of leverage he could hold over their father. He'd never anticipated such a thing, but he wouldn't turn such a useful tool away.

"Wait, so how do I find the area if I just know the radius of a circle?" Bain asked, as Sigrid stirred a pot of box macaroni on the stove behind him.

Tilda groaned. "Bor-ing. Does this look like Bain to you?" she brandished another drawing.

"Sorry that I care about my education more than some stupid scribbles," Bain retorted. Thranduil watched the pair of them with a sense of amusement mingled with confusion. He felt he should be insulting someone, or perhaps threatening them, but neither of them was paying him much attention anymore as the pair broke into an argument. With Bard as his audience a few nights before, it had felt like a victory to infiltrate the man's family in front of him. Now, Thranduil could not help but feel that he was being absorbed like a foreign organism into the immune system.

A tap on the side of his arm drew his attention away from the bickering children. Sigrid stood before him,  drying her hands on a towel with a faint scowl on her face. She gestured towards the doorway leading to the hallway. "A word?"

Thranduil nodded, following her out as the sound of Tilda and Bain's argument was muffled by the walls. Sigrid stopped a few feet away, her arms crossing protectively over her chest. It was the only vulnerable aspect to her posture. Her eyes were cold and hard, her jaw set. Thranduil could see so much of Bard in her.

Sigrid sized him up as they stood in frosty silence. He let it draw out until at last she shook her head. "Tilda and Bain seem to like you."

Thranduil feigned innocence. "Oh?"

"I don't."

Thranduil smiled with no warmth at all. "Well, I'm sure you'll warm up to me eventually."

A muscle in Sigrid's jaw ticked. "Don't count on it."

Thranduil leaned against the wall, turning to inspect a crack in the paint with all his attention. "Was that all you wished to tell me?"

He heard her sigh in aggravation. "I know I don't need to give you the whole 'dating my dad' speech," she said quietly. "You and Da are both adults, and you can do what you want."

"True," Thranduil said lightly. He wondered idly what Bard had told them, after Thranduil had left that night.

Sigrid frowned. Perhaps she had expected more humility. "I also know that you have no reason to listen to anything I say. But here's a fair warning: My Da has been through a lot. He deserves someone who can make him happy. Now, I don't think you are that person, but that's not my call to make. So whatever Da wants from you, you'd better give it to him. Understand?"

Thranduil tilted his head with a coy smile. "And I suppose if I don't, you'll be coming after me with a shotgun?"

"Not a shotgun," Sigrid said with no trace of humor. "Da has a pretty impressive hunting bow in his closet that I might just dust off."

Thranduil blinked. He was starting to like Bard's eldest child. "I'll keep that in mind."

"See that you do." Without another word, Sigrid turned and strode back into the kitchen where her siblings waited. For a moment Thranduil considered following her, telling the exact jokes he knew would make Bain laugh, showing Tilda how to shade a drawing, if only to see the anger leap up behind Sigrid's eyes. He didn't. The door was waiting at the end of the hall. It was a short ride to Bard's garage from here. When he stepped back into the night he found it cold enough to urge him onwards.

It wasn't safe for Bard to stay out so late, so far from the safety of his home. Invitations held no sway in a place of business—if something found Bard there, nothing would stop it from walking through the door and killing Bard with his own tools. At home, he would at least have that one small protection. Thranduil thought of the children, the danger they would be in as well. He had never brought himself to care for mortals other than a chosen few. But they were Bard's, and Bard was his.

The garage was shut off from the cold night air when Thranduil arrived. He pulled into the back lot, the old vehicles squatting in the grass, quietly rusting. A sense of relief welled up in him as he noted Bard's scent on the air. Something inside himself relaxed that he had not known was on edge. The door to the shop he also found unlocked—it took him a moment to spot Bard amongst the machinery, little more than a pair of legs sticking out from underneath a car. Thranduil walked with a quiet tread, taking his time, eyes scanning the walls. There were pictures stuck there, along with plenty of notes and pages from repair manuals stuck onto the walls. His children featured prominently in most of the photographs Thranduil saw.

At last he made his way over to the car Bard was working under, the gentle clink of metal filling the air. When the sounds from beneath the car went silent, Thranduil knew that Bard had seen his feet slowly pacing by. He continued onward, walking around until he was leaning against the side of the car beside Bard's legs. They were clad in a pair of ratty jeans, streaked with oil with a rag hanging from the pocket.

After a moment, Bard's voice came from beneath the car. "We're closed," he said in a resigned tone.

Thranduil smiled in spite of himself. "I suppose you'd better throw me out, then."

"I bet you'd like that." The sounds of Bard working started up again. The silence drew out between them.

"If you're going to stick around, you might as well make yourself useful," Bard said, his voice muffled. "Hand me the socket wrench. It's on the workbench."

Thranduil turned, eyes scanning the table in question. "What does it look like?"

"It's a long length of metal with a tube on the end."

Thranduil stared blankly at the various implements laying haphazardly on the surface before him. Out of all the hobbies he'd picked up in his time on Earth, mechanical engineering had never been one of them. He selected the least likely candidate and held it down for Bard to take.

A hand blackened with oil slid out from beneath the car to accept it. A moment later he tossed it back. "No, that's a C-wrench. The socket wrench has more of a bulb thing."

Thranduil tried the next one. "Monkey wrench," Bard said. "I thought you were supposed to know everything."

"Knowing the different kinds of wrenches was never relevant," Thranduil muttered.

"Alright, fine. I'll get it myself." The board Bard had been lying on rolled backwards, revealing a thin grey t-shirt and a face that was also smeared with grease. Bard's hair had been pulled back into a bedraggled ponytail, which he tugged on with a grimace as he climbed to his feet. There were bags under his eyes, but it was a quiet sort of tiredness that hung about him. He seemed too resigned to be afraid.

Bard leaned past him with a quirk of his eyebrow to pick out one of the implements on the table. He held it up in front of Thranduil's face. "Socket wrench," he said. "There. You learned something today."

Thranduil found nothing to say. Meeting Bard's eyes seemed to press his tongue down to the well behind his teeth. After a moment the other man turned away, shaking his head, and slid back down underneath the car. The sound of enthusiastic socket-wrenching followed.

"Did you want something in particular?" Bard asked. "Here to threaten my children some more, maybe? Drop a few more enigmatic clues about the people you've murdered in the past?"

Thranduil could easily have said that he had seen Bard's children less than an hour ago. He knew the effect such a statement would have. Perhaps it would even make Bard behave himself. Thranduil said nothing. His eyes settled on the strip of skin where Bard's shirt had ridden up just below his navel, the line of hair there. For a moment he considered wrenching the board backwards, bringing Bard out so he could look at his face again. Thranduil's hands tightened on his elbows, and he did not move.

"So this is just a social call, then," Bard supplied when he did not respond. "Well, you'll have to forgive me. There's nothing around here to eat or drink that I feel like sharing with you, and I'm not much in the mood for—"

"I have something for you," Thranduil interrupted him.

Bard paused. A moment later he slid out from under the car with a clatter of wheels, sitting up to regard Thranduil with a wary look. "Should I be worried?"

"Perhaps." Thranduil reached into his back pocket, retrieved the stake he had carved. He held it out so Bard could see, but he did not offer it to him. "Carved from Romanian ash. You'll not find a better weapon for killing my kind. I want you to keep it with you at all times." With that, he set it on the table behind him.

Bard stared at him for a long moment, then let out an aggravated sigh. "I don't have time for your games tonight, Thranduil."

A rush of irritation. "You think this is a game?"

"You told me it was, in so many words," Bard snapped, rising to his feet to and walking over to a workbench across the room, ignoring the stake. "If I don't catch up on all the work I've fallen behind on—which was because of you, by the way—I'm not going to be able to make my payments on my house. Or buy my kids food. Not that I'm sure any of that matters to you."

"If it's money you need, I can supply it," Thranduil said impatiently. Bard slowly turned to face him, his expression unreadable.

"I don't want your money," Bard snapped. "I don't want to think about what you've done to get it."

"You'd be surprised to know how much interest you can rack up on an investment which redefines the meaning of 'long term'," Thranduil replied. "Your conscience can remain clear."

"Now there's a joke," Bard said with a hollow laugh. He wandered over to the sink, began scrubbing the oil from his hands and face with little success. "Well, I don't care where it came from. I'm not interested. I've worked my way through tougher spots than this, and I don't want anything from you."

" _Bard_." The other man turned at the tone of Thranduil's voice, the quietness of it. Thranduil paused to collect himself, offering his next words in a silky tone. "Stay inside after sundown. You can think of it as a favor to me. You'll find I always repay them."

A dry chuckle escaped from Bard's throat. He ambled over towards Thranduil, idly adjusting a few of the tools on the workbench before leaning backwards on the hood of the car he'd been working on. "A favor? As if you couldn't enforce it, if you wanted to."

Thranduil remained silent. Threats would only make Bard more likely to try and disobey him. He'd lost the element of fear; Bard had seen weakness in him, knew he could be beaten. Likely he would try to drive that stake right through Thranduil's own heart at the first chance. Let him try—as long as he kept the weapon with him. If someone came after Bard, they would not expect him to be armed. That would be his one advantage. He told the man none of this. Such things were not his concern.

Bard began picking at the hem of his short sleeve, his eyes darting back to Thranduil. Tension seemed to spark from the tips of his fingers with every motion. "Aren't you going to threaten me, or something?"

"If you want me to," Thranduil replied.

Bard's eyes gleamed with something between anger and amusement. "It wouldn't really be an evening without it, would it?"

"Very well." Thranduil raised an eyebrow in the appearance of thought. "Stay inside the house at night, or I'll open you up with a box cutter."

Bard tilted his head. "Not bad. Nice detail with the box cutter. I'd give it an eight out of ten."

Thranduil smiled ruefully. "Eight out of ten? I must be losing my touch."

Bard shook his head, half in disbelief and half in amusement. A reluctant smile had sprung up on his lips, his hair still pulled back from his face and a streak of engine oil crossing his cheekbone. As he crossed his arms, the thin material of his shirt pulled tight against his chest. The neckline was open enough that Thranduil could see the points of Bard's collarbones where they peeked out from beneath the fabric, and the sheen of sweat at the V of his throat. There was nothing elegant about him. In the time Thranduil had spent with him, he couldn't remember Bard ever looking so appealing.

"You know," Bard said, "I wouldn't have taken you for the kind of person to have a sense of humor."

"You'll find I'm full of surprises," Thranduil said.

Bard's mouth twisted bitterly. Perhaps he was remembering a few of the surprises Thranduil had offered him in the past. But it didn't have to be like that all the time. There was a give and a take, there always was. Bard had to see that.

"I'm trying to protect you," Thranduil blurted. As if such a sentiment had the power to gain him Bard's sympathy. He could feel the moment slipping away, the warmth draining from the air. Bard was hardly looking at him now, reminded again of what Thranduil was.

"Last I checked, the only thing in my life I needed protecting from was you." His arms uncrossed, leaning his palms on the hood of the car behind him. "Unless there's something you feel like telling me."

Thranduil remained silent.

With a  bitter chuckle, Bard shook his head. Clearly he'd expected nothing more. "Thranduil, it's late, and I'm tired. Whatever you want, just get it over with."

This wasn't how it was supposed to go. They had been laughing together mere moments ago, and now—Bard was looking away, his eyes trailing idly over the corners of the room to avoid Thranduil's gaze. Thranduil knew that his presence was no longer desired. That perhaps it never had been.

Thranduil cleared the short distance between them in a single step. He pushed into Bard's space, heard the man take a short breath as Thranduil stopped short before him. He could feel the heat radiating from Bard's skin, see the way his knuckles tightened on the hood of the car behind him. Thranduil raised a hand to trace the smear of oil on Bard's cheek, sliding the pads of his fingers down Bard's neck. His pulse was fast. Thranduil wanted to taste it. Bard's eyelashes fluttered with every rapid blink, but his face stayed expressionless. He made no move, either to pull away or lean in closer. That was fine. Thranduil would do it for him.

He brought their lips together gently. His mouth moved over Bard's, pressing and pulling back—the other man was utterly still beneath him, pliant yet not responding. Thranduil pulled back, sliding his other hand to rest on Bard's hip. Bard's eyes were open, but Thranduil could read nothing in them.

"You're beautiful," Thranduil murmured, taking in the torn jeans and the worn t-shirt and the scraggly mess of his hair. "Do you know that?" Bard said nothing, and when Thranduil leaned in to kiss him again he felt nothing beneath his lips but empty, unmoving flesh. Thranduil waited for him to respond the way he had in the alley, hungry and hurried, but found nothing returned. Irritation surfaced. He'd seen the look in Bard's eyes when he'd licked the blood off his thumb. Bard had wanted him then. Thranduil let his lips trail across Bard's jaw, pressing until he felt the hardness of teeth under the skin. When he began to suck at Bard's pulse point he could taste the blood even through the skin. He could smell the lust in the air, practically taste it—but still Bard did nothing. Thranduil slid his lips back to Bard's and began to kiss him harder, his fingers digging into Bard's hip, his mouth pressing deeper, taking more. Bard was like a mannequin under his hands, or perhaps a corpse.

Thranduil pulled back, his eyes tightly shut, clamping down on his emotions with a terse exhalation. When he opened his eyes again, Bard's eyes were staring straight ahead, refusing to meet his own. Anger began to rise.

"Is this how you think I want you?" he breathed. "Limp and motionless as a dead fish?"

Bard's eyes rose to his then. "I wouldn't want to guess at how you'd like me," he replied, his voice low and coiled with tension. Thranduil held his gaze. The man's pupils were blown out, and for all his self-control his breath was slightly ragged. Perhaps Bard thought that if he gave no reaction, Thranduil would get bored or frustrated and leave. This was an act of defiance. And Bard had underestimated him.

With a growl of mounting fury, Thranduil laced his fingers through Bard's hair and _yanked_ ¸ biting down on Bard's lower lip at the same time. That drew a response, a short cry making it past Bard's lips before Thranduil swallowed it. He crowded Bard backwards until he was pushed up onto the hood of the car, their chests pressed so tightly Thranduil could feel the hammering of Bard's heart against his chest. Thranduil raked his fingernails down Bard's back, sliding up under her shirt to feel the warm, smooth skin there. He tried to tell himself that this was what he wanted. Bard didn't push him away. He merely sat still. He tasted like ash.

Thranduil tore away from him a second later, stepping away and turning his back to run a hand over his mouth. His hand shook as he lowered it. When he turned around Bard was watching him closely, face blank, breathing hard. His lips were already swollen with blood, his hair even messier than usual. Thranduil could see the tightness in the man's jeans, knew he would find him hard. The hunger reared up, black and twisted inside of him. Thranduil's hands balled into useless fists at his side. He kept his distance. Bard had made his point clear. Perhaps Thranduil could take him whenever he wanted, but he wouldn't. Not like this.

Bard's eyes pierced straight through him, and Thranduil didn't like the thought of what they might be seeing.

He turned on his heel, heading for the door. "When I do touch you, it'll be after you've begged me for it." The words fell flat from Thranduil's lips where once they would have been a promise, an invitation. They did nothing but stir the air. It was his fault for letting himself start to feel attached. For putting himself in a position in which he could be rejected. Tauriel had been right. Now wasn't the time to grow soft.

He could still feel the touch of Bard's lips on his own as he stalked back to his car. He'd bury his mouth into some stranger's neck, and see if that washed the taste out.


	8. Chapter 8

Bard watched the soap bubbles spiral down the drain.

The water that pelted his face and shoulders was ice-cold. His skin had been reduced to a dull ache a long time ago, but he forced himself to stand there. The water didn't seem to cleanse him at all; it struck him like a hammer blow pounding him into a flat, hard disk that let nothing in. His skin was numb, a wall against himself. But something else stirred inside.

 

* * *

 

Just two nights ago Bard had come home with fingernail marks in the palms of his hands and an ache still throbbing between his legs. It was still there as he slipped quietly into his room, got the bottle of peroxide out of his bathroom cabinet and dabbed at the half-moon circles of red cut into his palms. It was still there when he changed into his sleeping clothes and lay down in bed, both hands digging into his pillow as he forced himself to try and sleep. It wouldn't take long to find some sort of release, not when he was wound as tightly as a spring beneath the pit of his stomach. All it would take would be to reach down—but he wouldn't. Not like this. He wasn’t ready to make that kind of concession.

He stared at the ceiling, eyes following the cracks, catching on the darkness of a crevice in the corner. He could still taste Thranduil on his lips, the way he’d worked himself in so slowly and deliberately that his lingering presence had made the toothpaste taste wrong. The windows were all vacant as Bard lay awake, his eyes straying outside even when he tried to call them back. For once he almost wished that he would see his shape lurking in the woods, a dangerous smile, a mocking tilt of the head. It would give him something to rail against, to remind himself that he had won. Outside, there was nothing. The woods had grown cold and still. The insects were falling silent as winter came, and Bard was left alone with his thoughts.

 _This is victory,_ he told himself, fighting off the memory of Thranduil’s hands pressing into him, the way his body still pulsed in response. He had turned the monster away, not with silver or a crucifix but by turning to stone. Thranduil had thrown himself at Bard with nearly everything, and he’d broken like water on the rocks. It had taken every ounce of self-control that Bard possessed to keep himself still, motionless when his body wanted to leap up like flames in dry grass or crumble like ash. But in the end, Thranduil had broken and he had not. That was something. It had to be.

He squeezed his eyes shut, pressing his head back to the pillow. He tried not to remember the sudden burst of pain as Thranduil's teeth sunk into his lower lip, when the only thing stopping his hips from bucking up was his nails biting into his hands. He was sore, sore in more ways than one, each little twinge and ache ushering him back to the pallid fluorescents of his garage, the hiss of breath he knew was only drawn to pull Bard’s scent closer. He wouldn't let himself think about it. But god, he'd _wanted_ to—even knowing exactly what Thranduil was, knowing what he'd done, what he could still do.

God, the man had threatened Bard's _children_ , and yet he couldn't stop thinking about—

Bard had pushed himself out of bed, turned on the shower. Just the cold. He stood under it until he forgot what heat and want felt like, until he was raw and numb and hardly felt the sheets as he fell back into bed. Sleep barely touched him. When he woke up, he was hard again. Back to the cold showers. The night afterwards, more of the same.

The night after that came the dream.

He’d driven home from work long after sundown, knowing there was no safety to be found at home. Trees scrolled by the windshield as he drove, windows a seal to keep the night out. He could feel the coldness of it radiating through the glass as the tree trunks turned into neat dull lines, seeming to stand waiting by the road until their faces turned away into the darkness.

By the time he’d gotten home, his children were all asleep. He’d checked on them, one by one, their heads nestled safely into their pillows, oblivious to the darkness. He turned off the lights on the way to his room, dragging that darkness behind him like a black cloak. As he passed by his own window on the way to the bathroom, something made him stop. Snapping into place, a figure appeared as if it had always been there, the motionless body framed by two tree trunks. Bard hadn’t seen Thranduil since two nights ago in the garage, could scarcely see him now. He was only a pale grey smear against the blackness of the woods, so indistinct that for a moment Bard thought he could be mistaken, that there was a thin, pale post out in the trees he hadn’t seen until now. Seeing Thranduil always twitched at something in Bard’s chest, like a fisherman checking his lines; but now Bard felt nothing. The shape he saw carried nothing with it but emptiness.

He whisked the curtains over the window. He wouldn’t give Thranduil the satisfaction of seeing him unnerved. It would take more than a shape in the woods now.  

He collapsed into bed, feeling exhaustion seeping into him the moment his back hit the mattress. He would get up in a moment, take one of the cold showers which were quickly becoming a habit, wash the heat from his body. Sleep hit him like a torrent instead, dragging him into dreams before he could so much as fight it.

Thranduil was waiting for him there.

He'd dreamt of him before—yawning doorways, cold brick on his cheek, something sharp being slowly drawn across his throat. He would wake from them in a cold sweat, and not even bother trying to go back to sleep.

This was different. He felt warm, the softness of his bed creeping into his mind. It felt as if he was in a fog, even as the shape of his garage took shape inside his head. He seemed to drift through it, his feet hardly touching the ground, the walls drawing forward and pulling back like the trembling of some inner membrane. The pulse climbed inside of him, but that felt good too. It had been a long time since he'd felt this good.

Someone was touching his neck. He was on the hood of the car now, someone was with him, the dream was changing and it was _good_ , even better than before as this person's lips moved over his skin, touched that spot near his throat—something in his brain twitched, tried to fight through the haze. That spot on his throat was important, he was supposed to ignore it. That information obtained, he prompted disregarded it. His body wasn't even there anymore. There was nothing but the feeling, ebbing and flowing, of warmth and safety and want. Lips touched his, gentle and taking their time, in a way that was so familiar. He tried to focus, tried to see—

Blue eyes stared into his. They were soft. The smile was not. _You're beautiful._ The words punched through Bard's subconscious like bullets, and the dream seemed to snap around him. Thranduil was there, kissing him. Their bodies were slick with sweat, but when he looked down it was red splattered across their chests, red on the floor, their hands, their lips. Bard reached for the fear and found nothing there. He looked for the reasons why he should stop this, fight his way back into awareness, but everything was choked in a thick red fog, sleep and lust dissolving him into nothing but a dull ache, a rhythm in his blood.

Sleep whisked off of him like a cloth from a table. He was sitting up in bed before he had even opened his eyes, his skin slick with sweat. In his sleep, one of his hands had wandered up to press the small scar on his neck, the place where Thranduil had marked him. He clenched it at his side, feeling the tendons shift, the joints creak, as if it was a chunk of flesh that didn’t belong to him. The rest of his body seemed something apart from him, throbbing with a foreign heartbeat, acting out someone else’s impulses. They couldn’t be his own. But they lived inside him now.

The air was thick and warm in his room—he'd left the heater on. He should get up and turn it off, open a window, make goosebumps prickle under the sweat on his skin. He stayed in bed, letting his breathing settle, his hands flat on the covers, acutely aware of how hard he was underneath the sheets. His heartbeat wasn't slowing down. The memory of pleasure still pulsed in his blood. Slowly, as if detached from himself, his hand began to move. It lifted off the covers, and then slid under them. When he squeezed himself through the fabric of his boxers it was enough to send a tremor up his spine that parted his lips and sent his eyes flickering closed. A moment later it was Thranduil's face that filled his mind, the taste of his mouth. He squeezed his eyes shut tighter, tried to make his thoughts go blank. With each motion of his hand Thranduil seemed to expand to every corner of his mind.

A moment later he tore his hand away with a curse, his body aching in frustration and his teeth gritted with shame. He staggered to the shower on shaking legs, yanking the dial to cold.

 

* * *

 

The last of the soap bubbles disappeared with a new rush of water. It was almost morning now; time to start living again. The air outside eddied over his skin, as faint as fingers skimming across him. Bard shivered as he pulled his clothes on. Thranduil was gaining ground, working his way into him like a deep numbing cold. In the alley he had been a monster without shape or form—Bard knew better now. He had emotions. He was flesh, if not blood. Bard had felt that much. Thranduil didn’t just want to kill him. He wanted devotion. It wasn’t enough for him to simply take what he wanted—he wanted Bard to offer himself up, to lay on the altar and bare his throat for the knife.

That morning was too ordinary to feel real. He felt as if something had climbed inside his skin and was wearing him, eating his cereal and laughing at his children's jokes, kissing Sigrid's cheek as she left for school. It lodged in his throat, made his eyes itch and crawl with exhaustion. All he had to do was give in. Stop fighting it. As easy as relaxing into a dream.

He drove to work that morning, and ignored the car where a night before Thranduil had nearly made his hands leap up and do things Bard didn’t want them to. He ignored the stake still lying on the workbench where Thranduil had left it—and then, when the work day was done (still during daylight this time) he picked it up and took it with him. Whether or not Thranduil wanted him to have it, he figured he might need it.

 

* * *

 

That day Bard left work early, pulling back into his own driveway while the sun was still high. He felt the need to keep moving, his thoughts clattering after him like empty soda cans, always rushing to catch up. He could already see motion at the windows where his children would be waiting or playing or fighting. Maybe if he was around them for long enough he could believe in being normal again. It was worth a try.

As soon as he came through the door Tilda nearly ran into his legs. “Da, da, a package came!” she cried, tugging on his hand. “It says it’s for me!”

Bard tried not to let his confusion show on his face as he was virtually dragged into the living room. “Who is it from?”

“It doesn’t say,” Bain said from the living room. “The package had Tilda’s name on it.”

“I told her not to open it until you got home,” Sigrid said. She was sitting in one of the chairs with the package in question on the low table in front of her. It was a fairly hefty box, wrapped in brown paper, with no postal stamps. A thrill of unease travelled down Bard’s spine; when he met Sigrid’s eyes, he knew the package’s strange circumstances hadn’t escaped her. Whatever was in that package, Bard had a good guess who it was from.

“I tried to wait the whole time,” Tilda said, looking up with stars in her eyes. “But you were taking so long, and I thought I could just open a little corner and take a peek…” 

Bard leaned down to look at the package. One corner was tugged away, the paper ripped to reveal—his heart sank. There was no doubt about what was under that paper, and Tilda knew exactly what it was. She wouldn’t understand why she shouldn’t have it if he took it from her now. She would only see him as being cruel.

He straightened, a lump in his stomach. With a weak smile he tousled her hair. “Well, I’d hate to keep you waiting any longer. Go ahead.”

Before Bard had even finished speaking the air was filled with the dry rasp of ripping paper, Tilda’s hands making quick work of it. In a matter of seconds the wrappings had been torn away to reveal a box of professional-grade art supplies—pencils, chalk, oil pastels, drawing paper, all in every color imaginable. From looking at it, Bard could tell it was more expensive than he could have hoped to afford.

Tilda practically squealed, her face splitting with obscene joy. Sigrid couldn’t seem to hold back a faint smile at Tilda’s happiness. Her excitement left a cold pit in the bottom of Bard’s stomach, knowing who had been the cause of it. He plastered a smile on his face all the same.

“Oh, thank you thank you thank you!” Tilda cried to no one in particular. She turned on Bard, her eyes gleaming. “Do you know who it’s from? Is it all for me? Can I use it?”

“Go ahead,” Bard managed, scarcely finished speaking before Tilda was prying open the plastic case.

“Bain, help me take it to my room!” Tilda cried, struggling to hoist the massive box in her small arms. “I’m going to copy down my old drawings in pastels!”

Bain rolled his eyes in a long-suffering way, but he dutifully lifted the box and helped Tilda carry it up the stairs. The sound of her excited babbling quickly faded behind the walls. Sigrid watched them go with an odd look on her face. When her eyes found Bard’s they were far too knowing for his liking.

“I suppose we both know who that was from,” she said.

Bard sank down into a chair with a sigh. “Yes, I think we do.”

She settled down across from him. “That doesn’t seem the kind of reaction one might expect after a thoughtful gift from their boyfriend.”

"He’s not my boyfriend,” Bard said, perhaps too quickly, perhaps too harshly. Almost immediately he regretted it, yet there was nothing else he could have said.

Sigrid’s mouth twisted ruefully. “Is that supposed to make me feel better? That he’s what, some kind of fling?”

Bard pinched the bridge of his nose. “He’s not that either.”

Throwing her hands up, Sigrid sank back into her chair with an exasperated laugh. “Well. He certainly spent a lot of money on Tilda. Whatever he is.”

 _Let you never find out_. Bard merely shook his head.

Sigrid was silent for a few minutes before speaking up. “He was here a couple nights ago, you know.”

A deep cold settled over him. “He was here?” he repeated dumbly. The immediate other questions that leapt to his tongue—did he hurt anyone? Did he say something he shouldn’t have said?—were ones he could not ask. Yet of course, if something calamitous had happened, Bard would have known as soon as he got home.

"He showed up while you were at work. Looking for you, of course." Sigrid didn’t seem to think too much of the way he had nearly jumped out of his skin. Probably she thought he was merely embarrassed. It was better that way.

Bard nearly closed his eyes. "What did he do?"

"He told Tilda her art was 'adequate', and then helped Bain cheat on his math homework," Sigrid said. As she spoke, a wry smile twisted her lips. "Where did you even find this guy, Da?"

"I think he found me.” The fact that Thranduil had been inside his house, alone with his children, was one thing. The fact that he hadn't used such an opportunity to sow terror and mayhem was another. The fact that he hadn't so much as held it over Bard's head—well, he wasn't sure what to do with that at all.

But there would be other chances. Other times when Thranduil was feeling less charitable and more volatile, when he would show up to the house looking for Bard and finding only a few children who wouldn’t hesitate to antagonize him. Like a tiger living in a pen of sheep. No matter what Thranduil’s intentions were, it was only a matter of time before something happened.

Unconsciously, Bard’s hand travelled to touch the cellphone in his coat pocket, remembering the image captured from Thranduil’s own phone. He had yet to dial the numbers into his own phone, to do anything but stare at it and wonder. Whoever Tauriel was, Bard had no doubt she was dangerous. The letters of her name were full of an awful promise, another pair of eyes lying wait outside the house. She would be there whether Bard called out a name to the darkness or not. And he was beginning to feel his options slipping away, one by one, leaving only one thing that Thranduil might not expect.

“Sigrid,” he said suddenly. “I need you to do something for me.” From the look she gave him she must have known that something was wrong, but she let him continue. “After class tomorrow, I need you to take Tilda and Bain and drive them to your grandmother’s for the weekend,” Bard pressed on. “You’ve driven them before. On Sunday afternoon you can bring them all back.”

When Sigrid was silent for so long he was worried she would flatly refuse, she finally raised her eyes to meet his. "Da, what's going on?"

From looking at her, Bard knew that Sigrid wouldn't buy any line he might feed her. Upstairs he could hear Tilda’s laughter and Bain’s voice in reply. Both sounded as if they came from far away, smothered by wood and plaster. "There's just some things I need to sort out, Sig. I just need the weekend, and then everything will be fine."

Sigrid studied him. "This has to do with Thranduil."

It wasn't a question. Bard simply nodded. "You know I wouldn't ask you guys to do this if I didn't need to."

"I know that." Sigrid sighed. She reached out to squeeze his arm lightly. "Do what you have to. I’ll look after them.”

A swell of relief rushed over him. “Thank you. I promise, after this weekend everything will be sorted out.”

Sigrid nodded. “Alright. I trust you. But Da, I want you to promise me something.”

How many promises would he have no choice but to make, and then break? He waited for her to speak.

“If I’m looking after Tilda and Bain, you have to promise you’ll look after yourself.”

Bard didn’t smile. He merely nodded, his heart still and cold. “I’m going to try. You have my word.”

 

* * *

 

Friday night. The house was quiet again. Empty. There was no more waiting for the kids to get home, or lolling in the haze of sleep. The kids were gone, and they weren't coming back until the end of the weekend. He hadn't felt this alone since that first month, those long weekends with the windows boxed out and the lights pressing everything like a headache. He wasn’t shut inside this time. He opened the blinds and let the light spill out, and stepped out onto the porch.

The name on his phone glowed against the porch light. No one waited beyond the trees. If Thranduil was watching him, he would be here soon enough. If not—

He tapped the call button, and lifted the phone to his ear.

The silent on the phone was like a physical thing pressed to the side of his head as the call tried to connect. Thranduil had said that she wouldn’t do Bard any harm; he knew nothing more about her than that single tenuous fact. Right now, Bard had no one else to turn to. If he could learn just one thing about who Thranduil was and where he came from, perhaps it would give him a chance. The static prickled from the phone. He couldn’t know what he was about to say.

The call connected and began to ring. Bard waited, scarcely breathing.

Moments later, the sound of a phone ringing drifted out from between the tree trunks.

Everything inside him went very still as the ringing wound out of the trees, keening like the cries of a lost child. Bard’s eyes swept the faceless trunks as panic threatened to slam his heart into his ribs. She was here. Watching him. The sound continued, long and mournful. His eyes darted around the tree line, but he saw nothing but dark trees and an even deeper darkness between. With a slow curl of horror he had come to expect, Bard realized the ringing was getting closer.

A flicker of movement from behind the trees. The phone call picked up with a quiet click, and all at once the ringing stopped.

There was no voice, no breathing from the other end of the call. Bard held the phone to the side of his head like a compress to a wound, muscles tense. Each prickle of static was like a physical touch, enough to make him jump. No movement hinted at where the call might be coming from, the patch of shadow that might burst open and come streaking across the lawn, hollow-eyed and hungry.

 At long last, he forced his teeth open. “Hello?”

A twig snapped. Bard jolted as movement caught his vision, as the trees released a lone figure onto the lawn. She stood tall, her coppery hair pulled into a ponytail that lashed at her back with every step like the tail of  a cat. Her hand was pressed to the side of her face, a gesture which seemed almost surreal until Bard recognized that she was holding a phone. She walked towards him without hesitation or haste, her boots scarcely making a sound on the lawn. The closer the woman got, the higher fear mounted. She was nearly at the bottom of the porch steps when Bard saw her eyes, the way they gleamed with something inhuman and gleeful. He took one stumbling step backwards, and then another, only stopping when the doorway to the house swallowed him up. Standing on that side of the threshold, he made himself stop.

The porch steps creaked as Tauriel ascended. Her eyes were chunks of sea glass, and contained about as much sympathy. Staring into them, Bard could feel the rest of the world falling away—or perhaps being torn away in chunks. All of a sudden Bard was incredibly grateful he had sent his children away.

Her teeth were bared in a sly smile that threatened to split into a snarl at every moment. It seemed she was coming apart at the seams, something monstrous just beneath the surface about to break free. She stopped just on the threshold, her toes seeming to crawl in her boots as she stared straight through the door at Bard. Her eyes did not waver once, and neither did that empty smile—the phone was still pressed to her ear. Slowly, she tilted her head. “You rang?”

Her mouth was a shark’s mouth, though he could not see her teeth. Bard forced himself to take a breath. Tauriel lowered the phone from her cheek. “Mind if I come in?”

A spike of panic drove itself into Bard’s heart, sudden paranoia that his words would slip and let Tauriel come gliding in. “No.”

She laughed. “You frighten easily. From what Thranduil told me, I assumed you had nerves of steel.”

Bard swallowed shakily. “Perhaps I used to. Living in constant fear of death will do that to you.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Tauriel said, her eyes dancing. At last they peeled themselves away from Bard, scanned the hallway, crept into every corner of the house. He resisted the urge to move to block her gaze. Thranduil had covered the savagery at almost all times with something smooth and comfortable, as soft and appealing as sleep with the nightmare lurking beneath. Tauriel was a wolf with a jaunty bit of wool on her fur, the nightmare walking awake and unclad under the stars.

“I should not be talking to you,” she commented.

“Why not?”

Tauriel looked back to him, her eyes like a cat’s—drawn to motion. She let her body fall against the doorframe, crossing her arms as she leaned in a nonchalant pose. “Because Thranduil would not want me to.”

Bard shrugged. “Yet here you are.”

“Yet here I am.”

Bard crossed his own arms over his chest, mirroring her posture. “So I’m guessing that means there’s something you want to talk to me about.”

Tauriel shrugged. “You were the one who called. Perhaps I just want to hear what you have to say.”

“And if Thranduil catches you here?”

A dark chuckle. “He won’t. I’m not a fool—he’s out of town. Oh, don’t give me that,” she said with a dismissive gesture at the sudden look of horror on Bard’s face. “He left the night before you sent your precious children away—they’re not his concern right now.”

That gave Bard pause. The shape that he had seen out his window a few nights before—had that been Tauriel, her distinctive red hair dulled by the shadows? It didn’t seem likely. But there was no other explanation.

Tauriel smiled at him, assuming where his thoughts had wandered to. “You’re very predictable, you know.”

“I’m sorry that it’s obvious I want to protect my children,” Bard snapped.

Tauriel laughed. There was a recklessness to her, a bravado that masked a deep pit beneath. It seemed she could have been different once, that the anger was something purer turned sour. He had no doubt that if such a thing was true, she would be sure he never knew it. “Short-tempered. Are you not sleeping well?”

Bard resisted the urge to grind his teeth. “Then what is Thranduil doing, if he isn’t here?”

“It may shock you to learn you’re not the only object of interest in his life.” Bard could see her watching his face carefully, searching for any reaction. He stayed stolidly silent until she leaned forward a fraction of an inch. “Well? Aren’t you going to ask me who or what could be more important than you?”

Bard unclenched his teeth. “Would you tell me if I did?”

“No,” Tauriel replied flippantly, letting her head fall back against the doorframe to look at him from an angle. She truly was catlike, restless yet fixated on a single point, dancing around her words and toying with his. “Are you jealous?”

The protests fell from his tongue like hot coals, but she was already waving them away. “Don’t worry. He’ll come hurrying back to you soon. He always was too sentimental, as much as he denies it.” Bard kept his face smooth and expressionless. Thranduil as sentimental would have made Bard laugh mere days ago, but seeing Tauriel, he was beginning to understand. Sentiment was good. It was something Bard could use.

So he took a step closer, only a small one, and smiled. “But not you, I see. I imagine you’d rip me apart if I invited you in.”

She preened. “You’re absolutely right.”

“Then it must get frustrating, serving someone who gives in to his sympathies.”

“I don’t _serve_ him,” Tauriel said, bristling. “He sired me. When I was still human and close to death, he came to me and gave me the gift. We have a bond, deeper than you could understand.” A smile returned to her face. “But perhaps you will, someday.”

Bard merely shook his head, ignoring the way his stomach twisted unpleasantly. “Yet you still do his bidding.”

“I could leave, if I wished. I have in the past,” Tauriel said sharply.

“Then perhaps you’re more sentimental than you appear,” Bard said with satisfaction, raising his chin defiantly.

Tauriel stared at him, that cruel amusement mixing with bloodlust. “You ought to watch yourself. You have to leave the house sometime.”

“But you won’t hurt me,” Bard said, knowing it was true as he said it. Riding a wave of bravado, he took a step forward. Tauriel tensed, the smile slipping off her face like oil from water. “You know what he’d do to you if you did.” He took one more step forward, stopping a mere foot away. Raising a hand, he stuck out a finger beyond the threshold with a slow smile. It fell, deliberate, until it hit the center of Tauriel’s forehead. She felt as hollow as a doll. “I have nothing to fear from you.”

Tauriel’s features went completely blank. Bard’s smile faltered. A moment later she had become a blur of movement, and she had taken Bard’s hand in a grip of iron and _yanked_ , sending him tumbling down the porch stairs. For a moment the world was spinning and his limbs were banging on the short flight of steps. He landed on the dirt and rolled with a cry and a curse. The grass was beneath his hands, he wasn’t badly hurt—and he was outside of the house. Heart beating fast he scrambled back to his feet, expecting hot breath and sharp fangs on the back of his neck—but when he stood, Tauriel was still on the porch, watching him with dark eyes.

“I bet you’d like me to kill you, wouldn’t you?” she mused, speaking more to herself. “Thranduil could hardly punish your children for my own transgression. They’d be safe, and you—well, you would have nothing left to worry about.” She inspected him, gave a short nod. “But you aren’t mine to kill, as much as I’d like to. His scent is all over you. There’s not one of our kind that would do you the favor.” She tilted her head, as if a new thought had intruded. “Well. Most of them wouldn’t.”

Bared stared up at her from the base of the steps, still shaken from his fall. “And the others?”

There was no playful smile on her face now. “You had best hope you don’t meet them. Thranduil has more enemies than most. They’ll make what he’s going to do to you look pleasant in comparison.”

Bard’s thoughts flew back to the text he had seen from Tauriel before: _He didn’t come alone_. A slow, cold wave of understanding flooded through him. “They’re close, aren’t they? These… enemies.”

Tauriel’s eyes turned from him to the tree line at his back. He saw her nostrils flare. “Yes,” she decided eventually. “Not long now, and they’ll be here. But we’ll be ready for them. They’ll pass over us, or we’ll kill them. Or we’ll die,” she added as an afterthought. “But only if we’re _very_ unlucky.”

“And if you’re lucky?” Bard said after a moment, struggling to keep her talking. “What happens then?”

She blinked. A laugh broke over the seriousness on her face. “Then Thranduil can devote his full attention to you,” she said gaily. Her eyes narrowed at Bard. "He's going to eat you, you know,” she said, her voice low and enticing. “He's going to make you like it—it's what he does. He wants you to be his, and no one else’s. Not even your own.”

A cold shudder settled over his shoulders, as unsettling as something dry and dead running up the back of his spine. Her words were colored red, and they hammered into him like coffin nails. Something squirmed in the pit of his stomach, but Tauriel had not waited to enjoy his reaction. Her eyes were back on the trees, her expression wary.

“He’ll be back by tomorrow night,” she said. “I have to say, I don’t envy your position. Last I saw him, he looked very agitated. I imagine he has something especially horrific cooked up for you.” Only then did the mocking smile return, as she stepped down off the porch and brushed passed him, so close that for a moment Bard felt her like the touch of something in the ocean where the water is too murky to see. “I would stay indoors if I were you, Bard. But then again, if I were you I would have done myself a favor, and killed all of my children before Thranduil could get to them.”

Bard turned to follow her, the words dried up on his tongue. He watched numbly as she walked back into the trees, a slight skip in her step, red hair bouncing jauntily around her waist. The trees swallowed her up moments later, dissolving her form into nothing. The orange porch light bathed the grass around him, beating back the darkness or merely deepening it. For all he knew she could be there still, just out of his range of vision, watching, always watching.

There was nothing else to do. He walked back up the creaking steps and went back into the house.

 

* * *

 

Bard was becoming intimately familiar with the ceiling above his bed. Moonlight from the window threw the tiny bumps into sharp relief, turning it pitted as the face of the moon itself. There was a crack near the corner he had never noticed, which darkness turned into a chasm. Whenever his eyelids began to lower, it seemed to widen and swallow him up.

_He's going to eat you. He's going to make you like it._

Bard’s eyes flew open. His body cried for sleep, his eyes were too dry and heavy to keep open, but he didn’t want to sleep tonight. Or, more accurately, he didn’t want to dream. He knew what was waiting for him on the other side of his eyelids, painted red and slick and heavy in the darkness…

He started. Sleep was winding into him like fingers lacing in his hair. He should get up, turn the shower knobs, let the icy water skewer him into wakefulness. With a groan, he forced himself to kick the sheets away, drag his feet over the floorboards, reached for the shower knobs that sent a cascade of warm, soft water that washed him away until he was drifting…

He jolted again. He was still in his bed, his mind carrying him the few short steps to the bathroom when his body wouldn’t. He stared at the door, the muscles in his neck struggling to hold his head up. It was only a little ways away. He could just get up and do it. But the bed felt so soft beneath him, the pillow so comfortable, and perhaps if he slept for only a few minutes he would be able to stay up the rest of the night. All he needed was a few minutes.

The second he let his head fall back his body disappeared. He was dissolving, feeling sleep rush up to him and into him, and all he could feel was relief. Relief, as the dreams begun without hesitation, a flash of white-blonde hair against the darkness inside his eyes. Relief, as the world gently tilted, depositing him into a field of red. Acceptance, as those grey eyes crept up to his and filled his body with slow waves of electricity.

He was back in his shop. Thranduil was there—everything else was indistinct. He leaned forward just like he had that night, slowly and inevitably, their lips simply _touching_ at first, unhurried, simply feeling each other. _I’m going to eat you._ And then feeling wasn’t enough, and this time it was Bard that leaned forward and pressed their lips together, Bard who bit down and heard the other man gasp, Bard who shoved him back onto the hood of the car and grabbed his hips, felt his tongue, saw the red begin creeping in—

And then he was awake. He was awake in his bed, and the clock read some number that was far too low, and as he stared up at that familiar ceiling he knew how hard he was under the blankets. The dream still clung to him like sticky sheets. He closed his eyes, not trying to sleep—without sight, all he could do was breathe, feel the prickling of night air on his skin, the ache between his legs.

With his eyes closed, it wasn’t hard to imagine. He could picture Thranduil standing at the window, moonlight on his face and hair, eyes staring lovingly out at the forest. He could imagine how he would look prowling across the floor, the way his movements would be too smooth to be human as he slithered up the bed. His breath came slightly faster, the only sound in the room.

His eyelids flickered—when he opened them, the room was empty, the curtains hanging limply by the window. Bard stared past them, seeing only blank, dark glass. Thranduil could be out there now—perhaps Tauriel had been a ruse, convincing him to let his guard down. He could be watching Bard at this very moment, a slow smile on his lips. The thought made something curl in the pit of Bard’s stomach, mingled with anger. He shouldn’t be feeling these things. But the lines between _I shouldn’t_ and _I am_ were blurring, melding, and his heart was beating too hard and fast to ignore, driving him towards something unthinkable, something better not thought about.

So he didn’t think as his hand slid under the blanket, as he took hold of himself and began to move, as he let his thoughts wander back to those places he’d warded them from for so long: icy eyes, the contemptuous curve of a smile. He imagined pressing past that smile, crumbling it like clay with his fingers, the hardness of teeth behind the lips, the look in Thranduil’s eyes as he began to suck.

Something changed inside of him then, like a door swinging open to reveal nothing but shadows within, shadow spilling out into the halls and rooms of his mind, pressing against the windows and straining to get out. He forced his breath to stay steady, but he could hear the push and pull of it as he moved his hand faster, as his toes flexed against the cool folds of the sheets. He squeezed his eyes shut, remembering the way Thranduil’s hands had slid over him, had dug into his flesh like they wanted to tear pieces off. He thought of what it would be like to ball his fist into Thranduil’s hair and yank his head back, to feel the marble column of his neck and take it into his teeth, to see if he could make the flesh leap with the color of bruises. Thranduil's body was a blank Bard’s mind struggled to fill in—he’d only glimpsed its contours and angles underneath Thranduil’s clothes, or felt it pressed close in the dark of the alleyway. All that mattered were blown-out pupils, the press of noses and hiss of breath, the slow slide of lips down his neck to the scar he’d laid there with a fingernail. 

A soft sound threatened to slip past his lips as the heat and want churned—but would it matter? He was alone in the house. Unless, of course, he wasn’t—unless Thranduil was just outside the door, his back pressed to it, that infuriating smile on his lips as he listened. Bard imagined he would like what he heard. The thought made him grit his teeth, grapple with the anger and lust coursing through him, imagined slamming Thranduil down on the bed beneath him and turning that smile into something open-mouthed and gasping. He was so close now, something was flexing and bubbling up from inside of him, and Thranduil was watching him from the woods and his teeth were sliding apart, as long and thin as the legs of a spider, and plunging into his neck, and Bard didn’t want these thoughts but they were in his mind and he couldn’t shake them, couldn’t stop the way his body trembled and went rigid as stars exploded behind his eyes. He tasted blood. He had bitten his own lip.

He lay in bed for a long while after that, staring eyelessly at the ceiling, hair plastered to the pillow behind him, muscles spent. He lay there watching until a spider crawled from inside the chasm in the corner of the room, walked across the moonscape painted across the ceiling, found a small, trapped black dot in its web, and devoured it.

 

* * *

 

Daylight, cold and grey as a coating of ash on the lawn. The sky lightened as Bard got out of bed to shower, brush his teeth. The house watched his ministrations intently, without comment. He started the coffee maker, his face closed. Its gurgling followed him as he walked to the kitchen window and saw the package on the stoop outside. It sat patiently, waiting for the door to swing open and Bard’s hands to lift it, considering its weight, and after a moment’s deliberation carry it into the kitchen. Brown paper crinkled as he set it on the counter. He poured himself a cup of coffee first, the back of his neck prickling, wondering whether to open it and knowing that he would. A moment later the paper ripped away to reveal a cardboard box beneath. He opened it with all the care of a sleepwalker, the bitter smell of coffee in his nose.

 Inside was a human hand, carefully gnawed at the wrist, so small and pale against the delicate splatter of dried blood beneath it. 


	9. Chapter 9

The man only had two children. A girl and a boy, both too young. They danced around their father’s feet like wind-blown leaves, tugging him along the corridors of the city park at night. Lights were strung in the trees where the lanterns were not enough—to a human’s sensations the park would have been quiet, eerily so. But Thranduil could hear the city boiling with sound, hum of cars and voices as constant as the roar of the sea. The splashing of water from a nearby fountain seemed distant, unreal, as did the family’s laughter. They drifted closer, closer, moving down the path towards the bench where Thranduil sat. He watched them, expressionless. 

The father was correct. Long hair with the right build, the right softness in his eyes. It was him that Thranduil watched, watched as he ruffled his daughter’s hair, laughed at his son’s smiling face. There was none of the steel in him that Thranduil saw in Bard. It was only a passing resemblance, once you looked beneath the surface. Thranduil didn’t.

It would be a very simple thing to wait for the group to pass, to step up behind the man and seal a hand over his mouth, to haul him behind the thick trunk of a nearby tree. His children would play on, unaware until they turned around to find an empty pathway where their father should have stood. Thranduil would drag him deeper into the park, never letting a sound from his lips that might serve as a reminder that he was not what Thranduil wanted him to be. He could tear the man’s tongue out. Then, for a few hours, he could pretend.

They were almost upon him now. Thranduil could smell the soap on the man’s skin, feel the shifting of veins and arteries beneath. Just as the children pattered by, Thranduil rose his gaze to their father’s face. Their eyes snapped together. Immediately Thranduil could see the fear in him, prickling like a fly walking on the inside of his skin. Thranduil tried to see the resemblance once more, to pull Bard’s face over this stranger’s. The hunger needed no such justification. It stirred, a door slowly opening in the dark. Inside was red and black, and the sensation of something powerful lying in wait, its muscles shifting like oil.

The man’s pace sped up. He was right there, right in front of him, and almost gone. Thranduil leaned forward, his fingers creaking on the wood of the bench. The hunger surged forward into every corner of his mind, drawing a red curtain over his eyes.

And then the family was gone, moving onwards on quickened feet, the children oblivious, their father casting an apprehensive glance over his shoulder. Thranduil’s eyes clawed into the man’s back the way his hands should have. He should have done it. Why hadn’t he? Thranduil reached for the red thoughts and found them elusive, slipping away as quickly as they had come. All he had was anger, the same ashy, bitter taste that had lingered on his lips as he stalked out of Bard’s garage just a few nights ago.

The man and his children turned a path by the fountain, and disappeared from sight. Thranduil released his grip on the wooden bench, easing back and sighing through his nose. It was Bard he wanted. Not some cheap imitation. The hunger thrashed around in his stomach, his chest, his throat, coiling inside him like razor wire. He held onto that pain, that frustration. When he took Bard, and only then, he would release it. He would let his fury build, climbing like a wave, and when it broke over Bard it would be all the sweeter.

It hadn’t taken long after the incident in the garage for the hunger to come over him, black and twisting and hard to control. For a while, he’d let it control him. He’d torn apart a trucker later that night, lapped up the blood pooling in the his clavicle, Thranduil’s fingernails carving paths down the man’s face long after he had stopped trying to scream. He’d been tempted to go right back to Bard, end it all right there. Instead, after disposing of the body, got into his car and started driving. The city had risen on the horizon a few hours later, buildings like hives of insects pitted with glowing windows.

Over the past few days he had spent his nights moving from motel to motel, skirting streetlights, looking into the faces beneath them with kind, hungry eyes. He had fed well. The feeling was in him still, that lazy satiation that could so easily turn to hunger again. You never truly stopped wanting more. You clung to the stolen warmth in your veins and longed for the touch of the sun. When Tauriel was born he’d needed to chain her to the floor to stop her from rushing into the daylight on her first night. He’d lived for centuries longer, yet even now he felt the draw of the sun far beyond the end of the horizon.  

As he had bent his head to blank nameless skin, his thoughts, as they so often were, were of Bard. Bard, who had defied him. Who he had _allowed_ to defy him. Even now, sitting with the cold autumn air pressing down his skin, the thought was enough to make the hunger come creeping out from under the seams.

He drew a nail down the wood of the bench, leaving a pale scar. He imagined taking Bard’s face in his hands, running the pads of his thumbs on the outline of his skull beneath the skin—then he imagined _twisting_ , using his fingers to wrench his face out of shape until it was nothing but red and white. The fantasy gave him little pleasure. All he could imagine was the way Bard’s lips had felt beneath his own, unresponsive, infuriating.

He could always kill one of the children. He had known from the start it might come to that. There was no harsher punishment Thranduil could enact—it would tear Bard’s heart out, and Thranduil was not sure what that would leave him with. Perhaps an empty shell. Perhaps something more dangerous. Thranduil cast the idea away. If he was to be completely honest with himself, he found the idea of murdering any of Bard’s children distasteful. It was the obvious solution, a hammer when a scalpel was required. Besides, he had only just given Tilda that art set. No, they were more use to him alive.

Perhaps he would simply drink from one. Tilda was the obvious candidate, perhaps too obvious. Sigrid had the most steel in her. Perhaps the sight of her blood would be enough to make Bard more pliable. And then there was Bain, so stubborn and headstrong. He would not recover quickly—a long-term reminder. A grim smile spread over Thranduil’s face. He would make Bard choose. He would wait until Bard understood what was going to happen, perhaps even let him plead for a bit. Thranduil would enjoy that. He imagined Bard would do anything to stop Thranduil from hurting his children. Thranduil would let him. And then he’d drink from them anyways.

The groan of pipes trawled him out of his thoughts, turning his attention to the fountain as the water began to sputter, then faded to a trickle. Perhaps it was on a nightly timer. The park had fallen into a hush that teemed with distant life. The family was long gone, yet something lingered in their wake: a faint sensation that someone else was there. The hum of electricity from the sickly yellow lamps along the path undercut the sounds of shifting water—but the fountain was still, and should have been silent.

The earth seemed to tense beneath his feet as he stood. The feeling of being watched sharpened to the point of a knife driving into his brain. His head snapped towards the fountain, where the children had been playing just moments ago. He stepped towards the fountain, eyes scanning the woods around him until he was standing just before the water. There was something wrong with the filtering system—the water was murky, and deep. It gave off a cloying smell of decay. After a long moment, the surface stirred.

Thranduil’s hands plunged into the water, fingers outstretched, immediately finding something that was neither water nor concrete. Thranduil wrenched it up into the air and the light, sending rivulets of water sloshing over the sides of the fountain to splatter on the dark pavement below.

A body. Pale, waterlogged, the flesh seemed to hang off the bones as if it might simply fall away. Thranduil could see the faint purplish veins beneath the surface, even the outlines of his teeth inside of his cheek. There was something terribly familiar about that face. He had no hair, no eyelashes. Thranduil ran a finger over those strange eyelids, trying to place them in his memory.

The body opened its eyes.

 Pain. Before he could wrench his hand away the creature’s teeth were in him, biting clear through to the bone. A snarl tore out of Thranduil’s lips. The creature’s hands rose like clamps to his arm, but Thranduil still had him by the jacket—he lifted him, slammed him down on the concrete edge of the fountain hard enough to shatter it.

The filthy water gushed out of the gap onto Thranduil’s shoes as the creature’s grip slackened. He wrenched his hand out of its teeth, feeling the flesh tear in gashes. But the creature’s hands had risen to his neck, were tightening and then yanking him down, those dagger teeth extended like fingers to meet him. All that stopped him were Thranduil’s hands on his shoulders struggling to keep him at bay. He was going to chew through Thranduil’s neck, sever his head from his body.

Mouth open in a soundless roar, Thranduil lifted him and smashed him down again, aiming for the head this time. Once, twice, three times—the teeth grew closer, so close they were snapping at his hair. Ignoring the pain in his hand, Thranduil tightened his hold and brought his forehead down in a single swift motion, slamming it into the creature’s with a loud crack. Finally the pressure on his neck let up. Thranduil broke the creature’s grip with a swift blow to the elbows. Before he could retaliate, Thranduil grabbed the creature’s wrist. In the next second he had broken it backwards on the jagged edge of the fountain. 

A scream cut through the air, as harsh as the scrape of metal. Thranduil’s work was not done. The creature’s good arm rose up for a blow that would have torn Thranduil’s jaw off—he caught it, and twisted it out of its socket. The sound it made was like snapping wood but wetter, followed by a high bark of pain.

At last the creature began to still, slumping against the edge of the fountain with water still gurgling out past his shoulders. Thranduil kept a hand on his throat, ever wary of the teeth. They were long, delicate points rising up against the darkness past his lips. There were too many of them. They stretched the creature’s jawline into an obscene, swollen mockery of what should have appeared human.

An odd feeling crept into Thranduil’s chest. The creature was young—very young. He had been turned in the past week, judging by the way he still twitched and blinked like a human. He had yet to learn the stillness of death. His pupils were blown out so that his eyes were two flat disks devouring the light. They drew Thranduil in like the yawning mouth of a cave, summoning images of something ancient and hungry lurking far away from the sun.

“What made you?” Thranduil said softly, a question posted as much to himself as the creature before him. _You know who it was_ , a voice in the back of his mind whispered. This creature would not live for long. He had been sired to die, drained too far and filled with tainted blood. No matter how he fed, the hunger would burn him up from the inside. There were few who would create such a being.

The creature’s mouth opened wider, like some monstrous fish deep below the ocean sucking in a breath of cold water. “I wasn’t supposed to kill you,” he said in a voice that wheezed and clicked with every motion of his jaws. “I got carried away.”

Thranduil kept his face blank, though a faint curl of distaste might have slipped through. “I suggest you answer my questions now, if you wish to make your last minutes of existence as comfortable as possible.”

The creature stared up into Thranduil’s eyes, blinking against the lamplight. A slow, toothy smile crept over his lips. “There is no comfort anymore.”

With a single motion, Thranduil slammed his back against the edge of the fountain, keeping a firm grip on the creature’s throat. “Who sired you?” he demanded. “For what purpose?”

 “I am one of many. Our purpose is to die. We were not given a choice.”

Thranduil tightened his grip on the creature’s wrist, grinding it into the concrete. “Who? Who chose you?”

A low, keening cry came rumbling out of the creature’s throat. Thranduil realized it was a laugh. When the creature met his eyes again, they were full of that twisted mirth. “You’re far from home.”

Cold seeped into Thranduil’s bones. “What?”

But the creature’s eyes were staring past him now, out to the orange smog above. “When he turned me, I felt it all,” he whispered. “All his thoughts. All his memories.” His eyes shifted back to Thranduil. “I saw what he plans to do to you. _Not_ pretty.”

Thranduil’s hand found the right pocket before the creature could break his grip. The stake was in his hand, and then the stake was buried in the creature’s shoulder.

His scream of agony shattered the air. Thranduil glanced around the park, ensuring the paths were still empty, before wrenching the wood back out. The flesh was already turning a delicate, crumbling grey. The creature’s eyes were wide, his breaths coming short—he had not yet remembered that he didn’t need to breathe.

“The name,” Thranduil breathed.

“That _burns_ ,” the creature whined.

Thranduil pressed the tip of the stake just below the creature’s eye. “There are worse things. I promise you that.”

The creature stared at him for a long while, his skin twitching under the point of the stake. “Yes,” he agreed at last. “You’ll discover that for yourself, in time.”

Thranduil pressed the stake in deeper, saw the point disappear beneath the flesh, raising a gush of blood that turned grey where it touched the wood. The creature howled, trying to pull away with all his might. “ _Azog_!” he cried. “He’s the one, the one who ripped the sun from my body and carried me into the night, the one, the one—” The creature broke into a laugh, feral, unhinged.

Thranduil froze at the sound of the name, keeping the stake pressed into the creature’s cheek through his raving. He hadn’t heard that name in a long time. He would have been content never hearing it again.

“Silence,” he hissed at last, squeezing tighter around the creature’s throat and cutting his laughter short. “Where is Azog? What does he want?”

The creature looked at him, mouth twitching. “He’s going to pull you apart. Like an insect, limb by limb.” The creature’s eyes shined with a far-away light. Thranduil drove the stake in a little deeper, twisting it along the way with a silent snarl. The creature yelped, trying to twist away, his meaningless breath coming in ragged gasps. “You’re lucky, you know,” he whispered. “He wants you to himself, the glory all for his own.  He’s close now… very close. All that’s left is waiting.”

“Then let him come,” Thranduil said softly, betraying none of the ice crystallizing in his stomach. “I’ll be ready for him.”

“Oh, _you_ will,” the creature hissed. “But it’s not just you he’s after. Oh, no. Not at all.” The creature leaned forward, pushing against Thranduil’s grip, his mouth gaping open, the darkness closing in on his eyes. “I hope you said your goodbyes before you—”

With a single motion, Thranduil drove the stake into the creature’s heart. It passed through muscle and bone with a gristly creak, driving the last dead gulp of air out of the creature’s lungs. His eyes gazed blankly at the low-hanging sky above as his chest began to turn grey, then peel away like flakes of old paint inside his clothes. In seconds he was nothing but a spill of ash over the edge of the fountain, flakes of it forming a film on top of the water and dusting Thranduil’s clothes. He stared at it, brushing it off his clothes with a hand torn with deep, bloodless gashes, a hand which felt nothing at all.

Moments later, he was gone.

 

* * *

 

 

The hours it took to drive those winding roads back to town crept by on delicate feet, seconds fluttering by far too slowly. Before him, the road writhed under his wheels, flat and lightless. He took the serpentine curves at speed, as if he was being tugged onward by the current of a river, the momentum of the car eddying first one way and then another, hurrying him onward towards his ultimate destination: a little house tucked against the edge of the trees, ripe and fat with yellow light, with a familiar figure inside.

Thoughts of Bard tumbled with the creature’s words, tangling and competing for Thranduil’s attention. Tauriel could look after herself—the human was defenseless, and had no idea what was coming.

The reality of his situation solidified with every bump in the road. Thranduil was being hunted. He had known that for some time. Yet it seemed Smaug’s hunters were closer than he could have imagined—could they even be following his car at this very moment? No, these roads were too isolated for them to hide their presence for long. The key was not to panic. He would arrive at Bard’s house, and then decide what to do.

But of course, Bard was a problem in himself, and one no easier to solve. He had let Bard gain a foothold, let up the terror for long enough for the man to start thinking he could fight back. The thought had been exciting. It had also been a mistake. Bard was more resilient than Thranduil had originally thought, and with Azog on the hunt, there could be no more allowances. All thoughts of what he might do to Bard in retaliation for being toyed with were gone. All that was left to do now was survive.

Driving past the trees on either side was like descending into a rib cage. Moonlight crept past the tangled tree limbs above, and to his eyes it was as bright as a spotlight. Up ahead, the tight cluster of houses stood watch in the midst of the woods. In a few moments, Thranduil was pulling up outside of Bard’s house.

Something was wrong.

The lights were all off. It was too early for Bard to be in bed. Thranduil stepped out of his car, listening as the engine clicked and fidgeted in the cool night air. There was no sign of Tauriel nearby, but he could detect the remainders of her scent. She had been near here the night before, not since. He stepped up to the front door, tugged on the handle. Locked. He was considering the benefit of breaking in when he heard a faint bang from somewhere behind the house. There was something hollow about the sound, something that spoke little and said too much. Thranduil moved to the back of the house, sliding through the darkness like a shark through deep water, tasting the wind that moved past his lips.

The banging sounded again, fainter this time. Thranduil stopped in front of the kitchen window, staring blankly. The back door was open, hanging loosely in the breeze, swinging open like a finger extended, beckoning, before clattering shut in a breath of wind with a clatter like old bones. Through it, the kitchen was as dark as a blown-out pupil, absorbing all light. Thranduil stepped up, laid his hand on the wood of the door to hold it still. There was an odd smell in the air here, a kind of bloodless death tinged with old fear. He slipped past the screen door and into the kitchen, pulling it closed behind him.

As soon as he was inside he knew the house was empty. There were no stirrings of life from upstairs, no warmth still clinging to the air. A car was still in the driveway—it didn’t seem that Bard had decided to try and escape. Thranduil could smell him in the air, fresher than any of the other lingering smells. He’d been here, recently. He had left through the back door. Thranduil stared out beyond it, into the forest. He’d walked out in that direction within the past hour. He hadn’t come back.

Alarm began to burrow its way into Thranduil’s chest as he followed the trail, drifting across the lawn as silently as a specter. Bard was outside, unprotected. What would have driven him there? There was fear mingled with Bard’s scent, and no small amount of anger as well. No blood in the air. Yet something was strange, something that hung in the air around him, insubstantial. He quickened his pace, leaves crunching with frost under his boots, moonlight turning the world into icy shades of black and white. There didn’t seem to be any track. Bard had simply set off into the woods, following wherever the terrain allowed. At this time of year the undergrowth had mostly withered—the trees stood by, barren branches allowing the light to stream down, watching like silent sentinels as Thranduil passed by. They took on a strangely fleshy quality in the dim light, even to his sharpened eyes.

The longer he walked the fresher the scent; Thranduil could pick up the notes of fear much more clearly now, but they were only a faint underpinning to the rage. It was a smell as dry and hard as metal, or perhaps stone. Whatever had happened, Bard was very, very angry.

A sound from up ahead froze Thranduil in his tracks—a familiar voice shouting something wordless, nearly swallowed up by the trees. Bard. He was close. And he was screaming.

Dirt and leaves scattered as Thranduil broke into a run, dodging between trees as he followed the echoes of that cry. His fingers dug into his palms, his teeth already sharpening into points. He was close now. Very close.

Bard was standing in the middle of a clearing when Thranduil found him. He was staring into the darkness as if he were deep in conversation with it. He was also unharmed. There was no scent of blood, although there was something else, something that had brushed against him back at the house. A faint smell like cold earth and dust. It was strangely, maddeningly familiar.

The man threw his hands up in the air, staring at the unfeeling wall of trees. “I’m waiting!” he shouted. “I’ve _been_ waiting. Come out and face—”

“What the hell are you doing?” Thranduil snarled, crossing the distance between them just as Bard whirled around. For a moment fear flickered over Bard’s face—Thranduil’s long teeth were bared, closer than Bard may have expected or liked. But the look quickly faded, replaced with a cold, distant mask that burned from deep inside. There was the rage Thranduil had scented. And it was directed straight at him.

“I’ve been out here for almost an hour,” Bard said, every word scoured of any emotion. His throat was harsh from the shouting. At once the woods felt far too open.

“Then you’re a fool,” Thranduil snapped. “I told you to stay inside.”

“I remember,” Bard retorted. “You like giving orders, don’t you? You like being in control.”

Thranduil couldn’t understand where Bard was going with this, why they were having this conversation. His eyes scanned the trees at Bard’s back, searching for any signs of movement. He needed to get Bard back to the house. There was no time for this.

“Where are your children?” he demanded.

“Far from you,” Bard replied. Of all the times to be stubborn, now was the most infuriating.

“Come with me,” Thranduil said firmly. “We’re going back to the house.” He took another step forward, raising a hand.

This time, Bard did not retreat. He didn’t so much as flinch. His eyes stayed locked on Thranduil’s, burning straight through him. “ _We_ are not going anywhere. We’re going to have a talk, you and I. Right here.”

Thranduil ground his teeth in irritation, glancing over his shoulder. Moonlight drifted through the trees to pattern the leaf litter, leaving no shadow for cover. He could feel the light bristling against his skin, singing in his ears with a mosquito whine.

“Whatever you wish to discuss, we can do it elsewhere,” Thranduil said, forcing his tone to stay level.

Bard’s hands clenched into fists at his side. “No,” he said. “Here, and now.”

Thranduil stood rooted to the ground, frustration chewing on his every nerve. If Bard struggled the whole way, it would take twice as long to get him back. He would have to be convincing. “Don’t be unreasonable, Bard,” Thranduil said, smoothing the irritation out of his voice.

Bard’s laugh was as harsh and sharp as the crack of the whip. Thranduil’s head whipped around, flinching as the sound rebounded off the tree trunks. “Unreasonable,” Bard repeated. “No, God forbid that. How _unreasonable_ of me to demand an explanation. You just want— _look at me!_ ” Bard’s voice rose into a shout that tore through the air between them, wrenching Thranduil’s gaze back from his surveillance of the woods.

“Be quiet!” Thranduil hissed, taking a step forward to enforce it.

Bard stepped back in retaliation, but his stance was ready to fight. “Stay back,” he warned, voice still raised. “I’ll be as loud as I want to be.”

“You will be _silent_ if you want to live,” Thranduil said, stepping to the side with the intent of pressuring Bard back to the house. The man stepped with him, circling like fighting wolves.

“Is that it, then?” Bard said, and his voice was shaking ever so slightly but it wasn’t with fear. “You’re going to kill me? Best do it quickly, then. I’ve had enough of your theatrics.”

“It’s not me you should be afraid of,” Thranduil said.

“Oh, I’m not afraid of you.” Thranduil knew he was lying—part of the man was terrified, clinging to the edge of his rope with shaking hands. But that part of him was buried deep beneath the surface. It was the anger that had risen now, as clear and still as a windless lake, but with deadly currents churning below. Bard shook his head. “Is fear all you want from me? Is that what it is? Do you want me to start shaking whenever I see you?”

“If that’s what I wanted, I promise you would be on your knees in terror right now,” Thranduil said quietly.

Bard’s eyebrows raised, but there was no amusement on his face. “Would I? And how would you accomplish that, exactly? Leave more little presents outside my door?”

“Didn’t Tilda appreciate my gift?” Thranduil shot back, thinking on the art supplies.

Bard’s face contorted. “You’re despicable.” Thranduil could tell he meant it. He looked at the ground, breath coming in barely-controlled bursts. When he looked up, there was shame in his eyes. “You know, don’t you? That’s why you did it. God, I feel sick,” Bard squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. “I can’t believe I nearly forgot what a monster you are. Well, thanks for the reminder.”  

Genuine bewilderment was sinking into Thranduil’s minds, agitating his thoughts all the further. Thranduil raised his foot to take a step closer, and the man’s eyes snapped back to alertness.

“Did what, Bard? What do you think I know?”

“Don’t play games,” Bard snapped. “Not anymore. This was the last time you threaten me or my children.”

“The package was not a threat,” Thranduil snapped.

“Not a—?! Then what the hell do you call it?”

“It was a gift,” Thranduil said, wondering why they were debating semantics, why Bard was so upset over a packet of paint and pencils.

“A gift,” Bard repeated bitterly. “What, like a token of your appreciation?”

“I fail to see how this is relevant,” Thranduil said. “If you didn’t want the art set, you could have thrown it away.”

“You know that’s not what I’m talking about,” Bard snapped. “You were watching me last night, weren’t you? That’s what this is about.”

Thranduil saw the rage burning in the other man’s eyes. He stepped forward, letting his own anger loose to meet it. Bard stepped back, always pulling away, always just out of reach. “Last night I was a hundred miles from here with no plans on returning by daybreak. I haven’t set foot in this town since that night at the garage.”

A flicker of something passed over Bard’s face at the mention of their encounter in the garage. “Liar,” he spat. “You were there. Who else would it be?” Bard said as he retreated. Something was happening as he spoke, a seed of fear expanding like the petals of a flower. Thranduil stepped closer, driving him backwards and towards whatever revelation awaited him.

“Why would I lie to you, Bard? Do you think that would be worth my time?” Thranduil circled closer, fingers clenching and unclenching hungrily.

“Then you told Tauriel to do it,” Bard argued.

“Tauriel and I haven’t spoken,” Thranduil replied.  

“Then she did it herself.” His voice was strained to the point of breaking.

“Bard, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Thranduil snapped.

“ _Then where the hell did it come from?_ ”

Thranduil paused. Bard was breathing hard, his eyes wild. “Where did what come from?” Bard glanced over his shoulder, a nervous darting of the eyes. When Thranduil took a step to the side, he immediately saw it—a small box on the forest floor, hastily set amongst the leaves. Bard seemed to give it a wide berth. That alone was enough for Thranduil imagine what was inside of it, but imagining wasn’t enough. He stepped forward, inspecting the flat, neat panes of the cardboard box. One of the corners was dented, perhaps from being dropped—Thranduil could imagine the strangled gasp that would have preceded it, the clumsy, dead-nerved horror to follow.

He felt no shock, no disgust when he flipped open the box’s lid. Inside, the hand lay with its fingers slightly curled, as if they were about to twitch on the strings of a dream. The nails were perfect little semicircles against the flesh, which itself could have been made from porcelain. Except for the ragged, chewed-off stump of flesh just below the wrist, of course. Thranduil reached down to extract it from its container.

“Don’t touch it!” The cry made Thranduil draw his hand back in surprise. Bard was frozen in the act of stepping forward, his hands balled into fists at his side. Bard must have known that people were dying, that every few nights without Thranduil’s presence were paid for dearly. But this, apparently, was different. For one, this was not Thranduil’s doing.

He straightened, leaving the delicate piece of flesh where it was. “When?” he said, turning back to Bard. His face was completely blank, but beneath it unease was ticking at his facial muscles, threatening to allow something to slip through.

Bard dragged a hand down his face, seeming to tug his skin away from his skull. “Are you telling me you didn’t do this?”

Thranduil slowly shook his head. “No.” He wondered what Bard would say if Thranduil revealed how he’d been filling the past few nights he’d been gone. “I’ll ask you again: Where are your children?”

Bard hesitated, a muscle ticking in his cheek. “They’re with their grandparents for the weekend,” he said at last. Bard turned around, lacing his fingers behind his neck and letting the air hiss past his teeth. “Jesus,” he whispered. “Who the hell would do this?”

In a moment, Thranduil strode up to the man and spun him around, catching him by both shoulders and fixing Bard with a piercing stare. “Listen to me. I need you to tell me everything that’s happened since I was gone.”

 The flesh under Thranduil’s hands was knotted with tension, and for a moment he wasn’t certain whether Bard would try to shove him away. But something changed in the man’s eyes—they grew harder, more resolved.

“The box was on my back porch this morning,” he said in a monotone. “That’s all I know.”

It was difficult to tell if the man was telling the truth, but it would have to do. If the hand had appeared the night before, then whoever had left it would have had plenty of time to scout the area, prepare to strike. Thranduil could feel the pieces clicking into place as neatly as the jaws of a bear trap. The creature’s words came back to him: _You’re far from home_. A chill stirred the dead blood in Thranduil’s veins. Azog had known, had already found him. He could be here at this very moment, watching. But why wait? Why not have him return to a silent house with red walls, and pieces of Bard in every room?  

Thranduil gave a start. _Tauriel_. She must not have known what was happening, or she would have contacted Thranduil sooner. He needed to find her. No more wasting time.

“Come,” Thranduil said shortly, releasing Bard’s shoulders and hurrying towards the distant safety of the house. At once, the woods around them had become something else, the way you can look at a drawing for so long before seeing its double meaning. The air seemed to hum and dance in the moonlight, trees like fingers rising around him.

He had made it to the other side of the clearing before he realized Bard wasn’t coming. When Thranduil turned around, Bard hadn’t moved from where he stood. His eyes were veiled, his face in shadow. Thranduil stared at him in disbelief.

“What are you waiting for?” he demanded.

“Are my children in danger?” Bard said quietly.

Thranduil shook his head. “As long as they are far from here, they should be safe. We, on the other hand, are not. Now follow me back to the house.”

“And do what?” Bard demanded. “Whoever—or whatever—this thing is, it knows exactly where I live.”

“You’ll be safe inside.”

“Unless it sets the house on fire.”

Thranduil snarled in frustration, stepping closer. “There’s no time to argue.”

Bard’s arms were crossed over his chest. His face devoid of any emotion. “This thing, is it here for me?”

“No. But your connection with me makes you a target.”

Bard tilted his head, infuriatingly calm. “I see. Then if I, or any of my children gets hurt, that means it will be your fault.”

Thranduil stared at him blankly. “I wasn’t the one who left that hand outside your door, Bard. The blame isn’t mine.”

 Bard nodded slowly, as if he were thinking Thranduil’s words over with all the time in the world. “So this thing is going to try to kill you?”

Exasperation flared. “ _Yes_ , Bard. Now we need to—”

“Good.”

Thranduil stared him down. If Bard was afraid, Thranduil could see it no longer. The look on Bard’s face was he had never seen before—hatred, set into the hardness of his mouth, the pitilessness of his eyes.  Thranduil saw then that there would be no reasoning with him. He was beyond it now, locked into a world that burned with clean, sharp edges. As calm as he looked, Bard was all fury, wavering like flame. Thranduil would have to fix this, to do something—but there was no time. He needed Bard to leave. _Now._

Before the man could react Thranduil darted forward, slipping behind him just as Bard flung out a fist and a curse. Thranduil caught the hand and wrenched it behind the man’s back, hearing tendons and joints creak ominously inside the shoulder. Bard howled in pain—too loud, they were undoubtedly being watched—and struggled to twist out of Thranduil’s grip. Sliding one hand into the man’s hair, Thranduil yanked his head back to expose his neck. Bard’s struggles immediately ceased.

“I wasn’t making a suggestion,” Thranduil said softly. “Either you go back, or I make you go back.”

Bard’s eyes struggled to meet his out of the corners of his vision, his body twisted at strange angles in Thranduil’s grasp. With no abounding patience, Thranduil waited for the tension to leave his muscles. He could feel his pulse beating nearby, smell the fear coming off his skin—this was right. This was how it should be. There was no question of who was in control.

With a faint sigh of breath, Bard finally relaxed. Smiling faintly, Thranduil slowly eased his grip on the man’s arm, let his fingers relax against his scalp and stroke the man’s hair. After all this was done, he would make sure Bard didn’t forget a minute of this. “Good. Now go back to—”

Pain exploded behind Thranduil’s vision, so suddenly he couldn’t place what had happened. Bard wrenched away from his grip, and only as Thranduil’s eyesight returned did he realize what had happened—the man had slammed the back of his head into Thranduil’s nose. He had no time to so much as raise his hand to his face before Bard was coming at him again, hand swinging at his face with his left hand. Thranduil caught his fist at the last minute, surprised by the man’s speed, but before he could press his advantage Bard’s foot lashed out for his shin, catching the bone dead-on. Face contorting into a snarl, Thranduil tightened his grip, feeling bones grind against each other beneath the skin. A yell of pain escaped Bard’s throat, but Thranduil didn’t relent—his hand was like a constrictor, crushing tighter and tighter, and the bloodlust came barreling into his mind like a torrent, and he was going to rip Bard’s hand off just like that hand, rip it off and eat the bones—

By the time Thranduil realized there was something clenched in Bard’s other hand, it was too late. He lashed out, and buried the stake in Thranduil’s chest.

He stared down at it, chin falling against his chest, and for a brief moment all he could feel was shock. It dug into his flesh as hungrily as a burrowing insect, and Thranduil recognized the carved grip, the pale cast of the wood—it was the same stake he had carved for Bard, insisted he carry everywhere. _Ironic_ , a distant part of him observed. _The one time Bard actually did what he was told._

Bard had taken a step back as soon as the blow land. His eyes locked with Thranduil’s now. There was no pity, no remorse in that gaze. The pain was growing now, the sacred heartwood of the tree burning into him, and he knew what it was like to begin to turn to ash, and this wasn’t it. His hands lifted clumsily, as if he were puppeting them on strings, to grasp the length of wood buried in his chest like a ragged tooth. It was wet with blood that wasn’t his, blood he’d taken for himself. With a single motion, he wrenched it free.

The sound that tore free from his throat was nowhere near human. He held the stake in a grip like iron, hands limp by his sides, back stooped forward. Missed the heart. That was the mistake they always made. Yet it _burned_ , burned like the touch of daylight punching a hole into his chest. He couldn’t breathe—but of course, he didn’t have to. That was what pain did to you. It made you forget you weren’t human.

Slowly, Thranduil raised his head. Bard was frozen in place, the fear in his eyes mounting with every passing second. Distantly, Thranduil realized his fangs had slid out, piercing the blackness of his mouth with four slim points. His jaw worked like a shark’s, clenching and unclenching without ever closing. He took a staggering step forward, and then another. The pain was beginning to fade now, and in its absence something else grew.

Bard didn’t so much as take a step backwards. From the look on his face, Thranduil knew he understood. He took his time, each step faltering yet growing stronger. When he came to a halt in front of Bard, he held the bloody length of wood up between their faces.

“That was foolish of you,” he whispered. Bard’s face was blank, locked into cold acceptance. He must have suspected what was coming, what would happen to him now. Yet he showed no fear. Only a bitter cold.

Thranduil trailed the point of the stake down the man’s cheek, leaving a smear of red on the skin. Thranduil tilted his head, staring at it dispassionately. Red was a good color for him. “If you knew what could be waiting out there at this very instant, you would be begging me for forgiveness. Do you want to die? Is that your wish?”

“What does it matter whether you kill me or something else does?” Bard spat.

“Oh, you will care,” Thranduil said flatly. “Believe me. There are some things even I would not do to you. I promise my enemies will not be bound by such restraint.”

“I should hope not,” Bard said coldly. “I wouldn’t want them to give you an easy death.”

Thranduil’s hand shot out as quickly as a hawk seizing a mouse. A second later he had Bard by the throat. His grip closed over the man’s windpipe, nearly lifted him off the ground. Bard’s hands clawed uselessly at his arms, finding the injury on Thranduil’s hand and digging in. Thranduil felt the pain course through him and bared his teeth. “You’d like them to kill me, wouldn’t you? Well, don’t think you wouldn’t be far behind. Right now, I’m the only thing standing between you and an agonizing death. If you want to live to see your children again, you will do _exactly_ as I say. Understand?”

He relaxed his grip, allowed Bard to fall to his knees and heave ragged, coughing breaths onto the forest floor. There was no time for this. But he waited all the same, waited until Bard had managed to drag enough rasping breaths into his lungs to look back up at Thranduil through the haze of darkness between them. Thranduil stared down at him, dispassionate.

“Now get up and start walking.”

 

* * *

 

 

A few minutes later, Thranduil shot down the road into town, the gentle pulse of Tauriel’s consciousness drawing him onward like a tether. He’d left Bard in his house, standing just across the threshold and watching as Thranduil stalked back into the night. He hadn’t wanted to leave Bard alone, but he had little choice. He would be safe there—safe until Thranduil was ready to deal with him.

He found Tauriel quickly, at the only bar to be found. Memory stirred, of a night not so long ago when Bard had led him into the same bar, back when he had looked at Thranduil with amusement, a flicker of nervousness tinged with anticipation. Thranduil cast such thoughts from his mind. Bard may despise him now, but there would be time to fix that. If they survived.

When he stepped inside, he felt the atmosphere grow as chilled as if he had walked in on a bitter wind. With a start, he realized his bloody shirt was still visible. He quickly buttoned his coat over it with a nonchalant attitude, eyes scanning the booths for that familiar shock of red hair. Quiet muttering started up again as he made for the back corner, stepping around patrons who gave him a wide berth.

Tauriel was sitting with a young woman across from her, her feet propped up on the opposite bench in a way which casually blocked the other woman’s escape. Her quarry showed no signs of wanting to leave, leaning forward on one elbow and staring across the table with an enraptured expression. Tauriel was talking with that easy energy that never failed to leave her prey leaning closer across the table, oblivious to the trap closing in around them. The resemblance to that night with Bard dredged up jealousy from the pit of Thranduil’s stomach.

He stepped forward, interrupting whatever Tauriel had been saying. He looked at her prey with no humanity in his eyes. “Get out.”

The woman glanced between him and Tauriel, a question in her eyes. When Tauriel opened her mouth to offer some explanation, the dam burst. Thranduil slammed his palms on the table, causing the salt and pepper shakers to jump with a faint clatter. Once again, the hush fell over the bar. Moment later Tauriel had withdrawn her feet and her potential victim had slipped away with nothing more than a hurt look tossed over her shoulder. She wouldn’t know she owed Thranduil her life. He wouldn’t expect her to thank him for it.

As he slid into the booth across from Tauriel, her eyes scanned him with interest. “What happened to your nose?” she asked. She only scarcely managed to hide her delight. Thranduil’s fingers rose to his face on impulse, finding the dried blood there from the blow he’d suffered. She leaned forward, voice lowering conspiratorially. “Did you and Bard have a little tiff?”

“He staked me.” No emotion found its way into Thranduil’s voice.

As he spoke, he saw Tauriel’s nostrils flare—she smelled the blood. “He really got you good, didn’t he?”

“This is no laughing matter, Tauriel.”

Normally, that would only incite her laughter all the more. But something in his gaze stopped her fast. “What happened?”

Thranduil leaned against the back of the booth, suddenly feeling very tired. “We’ve been discovered,” he began. “A newborn vampire in the city told me Azog was closing in. Bard discovered a rather grisly indicator on his back porch last morning. I take it you were too _busy_ tonight to notice.”

“What?” Tauriel cried. “How is that—” She shook her head, lips tightening. “You told me not to interact with him,” she said.

“I am not angry,” Thranduil said truthfully. He reached out to pick up the salt shaker and cast a few of the grains out onto the tabletop. He began pushing them around with his fingernail, wondering what he was supposed to do, how he was supposed to address this.

“When did you learn of this?” Tauriel asked.

“I began to suspect Azog was near after confronting one of his fledglings in the city.”

“And you’re just tell me this _now_? It’s called a text, Thranduil. I could already be up to speed by now.” There was grim laughter in her eyes—he could see her awareness sharpening to the point of a knife, those hunting instincts kicking in. “If Azog knows that we’re here, why hasn’t he attacked by now? Surely Smaug would have wasted no time in arriving?”

Once again, the dying fledgling’s words returned to him. _He wants you to himself, the glory all for his own._ “I don’t believe Azog has told Smaug our whereabouts,” Thranduil said slowly. With a single gesture of his hand, Thranduil swept the salt off the table. “Perhaps he wishes to rise in Smaug’s favor by eliminating us on his own.”

“And did it occur to you that the reason he didn’t try to kill both me and Bard while you were a hundred miles away was because he was waiting for you to show your hand?” Thranduil stared at her blankly. Tauriel leaned forward. “As soon as you were told that Azog was near, the first thing you did was hurry straight back—and lead Azog straight to all of your allies. By now he probably know that it’s just the two of us. Now it’s just a question of the perfect moment to strike.”

Thranduil’s hands clenched into fists, sending pain shooting up the arm which the fledgling had mauled. He would have to feed soon in order to repair his injuries. There was no time for any of that now. “Not just the two of us, Tauriel. Whatever it is, it has already fixated on Bard. It knows he is with me. If he is nearby, I would expect he would stay closest to the one thing I have which cannot defend itself.”

Tauriel nodded. “You want to use him as bait?”

“We have no other choice.” The thought of dangling Bard in front of whatever was coming after them was enough to set Thranduil’s teeth on edge, yet if they were to strike it would have to be quickly. “Our only option is to kill whatever it is before they can report our whereabouts to Smaug—if they haven’t already. We will go back to Bard’s house and wait outside, looking for any signs of movement—”

“I hate to cut short what I’m sure would have been an impeccably thought-out plan,” Tauriel said in a low voice, her eyes on something behind him, “but we may have a slight problem.”

Slowly, Thranduil turned around. His body, which had slumped against the back of the booth, went rigid with tension. The door had opened, allowing a gust of cool air to come dancing into the smoky bar, and right on its heels was Bard. A bruise was forming under his jaw where Thranduil’s hand had gripped him, and one hand was held at an awkward angle. His eyes scanned the bar, found Thranduil, and in a moment he was striding towards them. The smile on his face was bitterly cold as he slid into the booth beside Tauriel, leaned forward, and folded his hands neatly on the table in front of him. Thranduil was speechless. Bard was not.

“I’m sorry,” he said casually, in a voice that rasped at the edges. “Am I interrupting something?”

 


	10. Chapter 10

There was a house near the lake.

Bard remembered it now. The house belonged to his wife’s parents, before they sold it to move to the suburbs. Sigrid and Bain loved it. He’d pressed his cheek to his wife's swollen stomach and promised Tilda she would love it there, too.

After she was born, he’d driven up the gravel road with her fussing in the back seat, with the silence sitting in the place where his wife used to be. Her parents had suggested the trip. They were only here to help. Everyone was only here to help.

He went through those days walking on ash, feeling the world compress and quiver with every step he took. The house had gone from a place of laughter and light to a vessel for dead memories. The corners of the walls had become sharper, the windows smaller, darker. It was meant to be an escape, to get the kids out of the house that still felt as if the rooms were cluttered with somber-faced bodies dressed in black. Bard was trying, trying to hold it all together. But in the end they had only run from one haunted house to another.

Bard had lain awake for most of the night, listening to the sound of dust settling on the windowsills, the sleepy mutterings of the baby from the other side of the monitor. As soon as dawn touched the sky he was up, kicking away the cold sheets and walking on silent feet to the front door and then through it. The sky was slung low with a thick layer of clouds, that hung over the surface of the lake like the stone lid of a tomb. The sun rising behind it wrung the color out of everything. By the edge of the lake was a swath of smooth pebbles that pressed hard into the bottoms of bare feet, and turned treacherous with slimy moss wherever the water covered them. It was quiet.

Bard had stared out over the water, seen something glimmering among the rocks—Sigrid had lost her favorite bracelet yesterday. He thought he would wade out to pick it up, and put it on her bedside table for her to find when she woke up. Maybe it would make her smile. The water wasn’t deep. He kicked off his shoes.

When he fell, the water had only been up to his hips. After the slippery rocks skated out from under his feet and sent him plunging backwards in a tumble of confusion, the water closed over his head. Even then some distant part of him had marveled at how quickly the air was sucked out of his lungs, as if he’d been walloped in the stomach with an iron bar. The water was so cold it burned, and then it felt like nothing. It sank into him as efficiently as a knife through flesh, cutting to the bone until he was nothing but dead nerves.

A part of him, so clear, had remained, suspended like a chunk of ice in his brain, observing that if he didn’t put his hands against the clammy stones beneath him and _push_ then he was going to drown. An entirely separate part of him wondered if that wouldn’t be such a bad thing, to let the water in and drift down, drift away, drift back to her. But he couldn’t. Sigrid, Bain, baby Tilda—they needed him now, needed him more than he wanted this. The fight wasn’t over for him. It was only just beginning.

Against the cold chewing deeper and deeper into his flesh, that thought was all that dragged him back up into the air, back onto the stones of the beach, back through the door to what was left of his family. He had never let the cold back in, not even lying in the dark alone staring up a ceiling as black as a starless sky, as empty as the void. He had pushed it away with all his strength.

Until now.

Bard stared across the table. Distantly he registered that the surface was sticky, that the light was too dim, that there were several pairs of eyes turned his way. He also noted the fact that Thranduil looked ready to murder him. Those blue eyes that had shot open wide in disbelief now narrowed into slits. Idly, Bard wondered if he should be afraid. That all seemed beyond him now. It was as if everything in his head had gone very quiet, leaving nothing but the silence of an empty house, the cold embrace of lake water.

 “I told you to stay at the house.”

Thranduil’s voice was level, but something behind it squirmed. At his side, Bard could feel Tauriel’s eyes leaping between the two of them as quickly as embers darting out of a fire. Bard remained still.

“And yet here I am.” Bard’s skin felt like stiff, wet clothing, like something bogged-down and clinging to him, like underneath there was something else entirely, something accustomed to the cold and the silence. He might have understood Thranduil better in that moment than he ever could have hoped to before. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling.

Tauriel was inspecting him closely, her eyes settling on the edge of his jaw with the gaze of a predator. “Those are some pretty impressive hickies on your neck there,” she commented. Bard glanced at her without feeling, letting the barb lance at him and giving no rise.

“Tauriel.” Thranduil’s voice was cold, hard. “Leave us now.”

Her face twisted in anger at the dismissal. “This is hardly the time for sorting out domestic disputes.”

Thranduil merely stared at her. Bard saw the current of something unspoken pass between them, like two mirrors standing to face one another. At last, Tauriel turned to him with a sour expression.

“Five minutes,” she said. “You best hope they don’t cost us.” Bard moved aside for her to slip out of the booth, her red hair shaking around her waist as she stalked away to the bathroom. And then she was gone, and he was alone with Thranduil. It hadn’t escaped Bard’s notice that this was the same booth they had sat in not so long ago, that he’d looked across the table and felt those eyes reaching back for him, that he’d wanted to reach out as well. Even under the cold settling deep into Bard’s chest, the memory flicked across his ribs like the touch of a snake’s tongue.

The silence seeped out between them, icy and unforgiving. Thranduil stared at him across the table with a stillness that Bard had learned was far more dangerous than agitation. It seemed that part of Thranduil was always in motion, and whenever that movement was not on the surface it was inevitably far below, churning in the gullies of Thranduil’s being like a riptide.

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t drag you back to your house.” Thranduil’s words carried none of their usual tone of mockery.

Bard smiled coldly. “Because you’ve already tried that.”

Thranduil’s eyes darted down to his lips, following the movement. “I could tie you down.”

“You could. Would you like to give it a try?” He stared at Thranduil, unflinching. It was as if he was looking up from the bottom of a pool of water. “I didn’t think so. So here's what _is_ going to happen: You’re going to tell me what’s going on. Right now.”

Thranduil blinked. Bard could see his jaw ticking, as if something inside it was struggling to get out. “What happens between me and my kind is none of your concern.”

“You said this thing will kill me, and my children, if someone doesn’t kill it first,” Bard said quietly. “I’d say that makes it very much my concern.”

 “You’re putting us at risk—”

“You put _me_ at risk.” Bard felt all at once the soreness in his muscles, the ache under his jawbone where Thranduil’s fingers had dug in. “I never wanted any of this.”

Thranduil’s mouth twisted as if he had tasted something sour, yet when his lips parted it was to laugh. “Stop lying to yourself, Bard. It doesn’t become you.”

Even knowing where it was leading, Bard couldn’t stop himself. “What are you talking about?” he said through gritted teeth.

Thranduil’s eyes scanned over him in that familiar way. “Deny it to me all you like, Bard. I've seen how badly you want me.”

Bard’s heart seized, as if a cold hand had reached into his chest and yanked. He clenched his fingers around each other on the table in front of him, fixing his eyes on them, fighting the shame and embarrassment out of his blood as he remembered the night before, what he’d done to himself. The scar on his neck tingled. Perhaps he’d been a fool to think Thranduil wouldn’t have known. He was surprised Thranduil had managed to restrain himself on the subject for so long. Likely waiting for the best moment to sink the final blow.

“Well go on then,” Bard said, and bitterness was hot on his tongue. “If you have something to say about it, just say it.”

Thranduil tilted his head. “I’m more interested in hearing what you have to say,” he said.

Bard knew he could probably feel the heat off his skin, sense the rise in his heartrate. “Then you’re going to be disappointed. It meant nothing.”

Thranduil blinked. “What meant nothing, Bard?”

“Are you really going to make me say it?” Bard hissed, fighting to keep his voice low. His hands rose off the table, brushed his hair away, stopped halfway in the action of crossing over his chest before finally settling back on the table. “I was exhausted. I just needed relief. But that was the first and last time I debase myself on your account. So I hope you—”

“ _What?_ ” Bard broke off at the interruption. Thranduil’s eyebrows had risen to incredulous heights, his eyes comically wide. After a moment, a slow, lascivious smile began to spread from ear to ear. “Bard, are you telling me that you—”

“You didn’t know.” Bard’s voice sounded abnormally loud to him, as if suddenly all the sound and thought in his mind had been vacuumed out and replaced with a single peal of mortification. “Oh my god.”

Thranduil’s grin was obscene now, his eyes brimming with a mixture of delight and mockery. “Oh Bard,” he purred. “If you were feeling tense, you need only have waited for my return. I would have happily—”

Without a word Bard shoved himself away from the table, moving to get up from the booth. He couldn’t believe this _couldn’t believe_ that he had let this happen, that Thranduil _knew_ and it was all because he couldn’t keep his damn mouth shut. He was just about to get up and go somewhere, anywhere else, when Thranduil’s hand shot out across the table and latched onto his wrist in a grip of iron.

“Not so fast,” he said, the playful notes in his voice ceding behind the familiar threats. “Unless you’d rather continue this conversation in a less private manner.”

Bard’s eyes darted to the bars patrons. He recognized more than a few, and even if he hadn’t—it was unthinkable. Slowly, he settled back into his seat, as he wrenched his hand from Thranduil’s grasp. The gesture only served to make Thranduil’s smile wider. Bard knew his handle on the situation had been snatched right out of his grasp, that he’d simply handed it over.

Thranduil leaned back, his fingers tapping a jolly tune on the table, inspecting Bard with languid eyes. “I have to admit, I’m surprised you resisted for so long,” he murmured. “I remember how much you enjoyed our time together after our first night in this very bar. We sat in this booth, you know—but of course you do,” he said with gleaming eyes. “I’m sure you remember it much more keenly than I do. I could see the hunger in your eyes.”

“You did that to me,” Bard snapped. “I was fine before I met you, I was _happy_ , I—”

“You’re still lying,” Thranduil said, and now the anger was returning, as quick and volatile as ever. “When I first met you, you were scarcely even human. Wretched, miserable, utterly alone—do you think I couldn’t smell that crushing loneliness on you, the way you twitched for my attention like a bird with a broken neck? You would have given me anything at all, had I asked for it.”

His words struck like stones thrown into water, sinking down and rippling in their wake. Thranduil’s words were just close enough to the truth to worm deeper into his chest than he cared to let them. He had been lonely, though he would have never admitted it to himself. A small part of him had savored those looks and casual touches like a drowning man might treasure a breath of air. And now, in some perverse way, he wasn’t lonely anymore. Whether he’d wanted to or not, Thranduil had only made him stronger.

Bard met his gaze without hesitation once again. “But you weren’t asking, were you? You were only interested in what you could take.” His eyes fell to the spot on Thranduil’s chest where he could still remember the feeling of the stake slamming through it. His voice turned mocking. “And look at you now. The only thing you’re capable of taking is a length of wood to the chest.”

Thranduil’s smile twisted into a snarl. “I could kill you right now, this instant, and all your friends in this bar, all the names of your children, couldn’t do a thing to stop me.”

A cool smile on Bard’s lips grew, spreading across his face like frost. “But you won’t. That’s why you’re afraid of me being here now. If I’m killed, you’ll be _displeased_.”

Thranduil said nothing. Bard could read the anger on Thranduil’s face now, had seen it there frequently enough. But behind that familiar mask Bard noticed the stiffness in his posture and movements, the way his shoulders hunched forward as if his chest were collapsing inward. Had the ragged hole Bard had left there closed? Did Thranduil feel it even now?

Thranduil’s spine was rigid, his body completely motionless. “I’m trying to protect you, Bard. Don’t you understand that?”

Bard laughed mirthlessly. “The only point you decided to protect me was when you realized someone other than you could hurt me. So you’ll forgive me if I don’t want your protection. I’d rather you tell me how to protect myself.”

He saw Thranduil’s hand tighten on top of the table. Bard remembered how it had tightened around his neck less than an hour ago. He could feel the faint ache where his fingers had dug into his flesh. He hoped Thranduil saw the bruises.

The silence stretched so tight between them Bard thought it might snap, that Thranduil might slowly unfold his fingers and in the breadth of an instant send them digging into his skull.

Finally, Thranduil’s hand relaxed on the table, as innocuous as a cat’s paw with the claws tucked into their sheaths. “What do you want to know?”

Bard sat back in his chair and regard Thranduil coolly. For a long moment he said nothing, allowing Thranduil to understand the concession he’d made. He waited until he saw Thranduil’s jaw tighten in irritation, and it was all Bard could do to repress a triumphant little smile from flitting over his face. “Who exactly was it that left a severed hand on my doorstep?”

He could see Thranduil’s eyes flick down, see him debating how much of the truth to reveal. “His name is Azog.”

Bard turned the name over in his head. “Azog. And what exactly did you to do make an enemy out of him?”

“Over the centuries, there are too many examples to count,” Thranduil replied. “But Azog’s grievance did not begin with me—he hunts me because his sire commands him to. With him it is… personal.”

“What happened?”

“It was a very long time ago,” Thranduil said shortly.

“For happening such a long time ago, it seems like your enemies aren’t quick to forget.”

“And neither am I.” Thranduil fell silent, his hand unconsciously toying with a loose splinter on the table. “Azog is only one of his master’s many servants. And he has many servants of his own.”

 “Are you saying he has allies? Others like him?” Bard pressed.

“Victims, not allies. Azog would not waste the gift on those that were unworthy,” Thranduil said. “I met one of them tonight. They scarcely resemble my kind—born wrong, without fully draining their human blood before administering the bite. They’re burned up from the inside by what their body is trying to become, never fully alive or dead. No matter how much they feed, the hunger only gets worse. They will scarcely last a week. But that’s more than enough time for Azog’s purposes.”

“How many of them are there?” Bard asked.

“Difficult to say. Perhaps a dozen. Perhaps a hundred.”

“A hundred—?!” Bard’s throat tightened. “How can you possibly expect to come out of those odds in one piece?”

“Azog’s creatures might be plentiful, but their condition makes them weak,” Thranduil said. “They will be slower and clumsier than most of our kind. But they will also be hungrier. Our only advantage is that I do not believe he has told his master our location yet.” A grim smile spread over his lips. “If we stop them from spreading word of our location, then no one will ever know that they were here.”

“I always was a fan of the no-survivors approach.” Tauriel appeared at the side of the booth. Bard had not even heard her approach. She slid in next to Thranduil, propping up her head on her hand and staring at Bard with an indolent expression. “So. You’ve decided to stop cowering behind your little walls. I hope you don’t end up getting us killed.”

“I’m sure I’ll be devastated if I do,” Bard said dryly.

Tauriel snorted. “Not for long. If we die, you die. Azog would especially enjoy the opportunity to vivisect a human foolish enough to try and crawl off the dinner plate. So if you want to survive the night, you’d better do what you can to keep _us_ alive as well.” Her eyes darted to the dark stain barely visible beneath Thranduil’s coat. “If you put anything in my chest, you’ll get a lot more than a stern talking-to.”

“Then I guess I’ll restrain myself for now,” Bard said.

Tauriel grinned. “Good boy. Now that we’ve sorted that out, what’s our plan of attack?”

“I’m curious about that myself,” Bard said. He turned to Thranduil. “You’re suggesting we need to wipe out all of Azog’s forces before they can report on our whereabouts. How do you suggest we do that?”

“By getting them all in one place,” Thranduil replied. “It seems Azog had already fixated on you, and his minions would not be able to risk a feeding frenzy. We _had_ planned to wait outside your house for him to reveal his next move, and then spring the trap—until our bait wandered off, of course.”

Bard’s stomach twisted with the beginnings of an uncomfortable realization. “You believed Azog would come after me first.”

“Of course. He knew exactly where to find you.”

“I was alone in the woods for a full hour before you showed up. If he wanted to kill me, he would have had ample opportunity.” Bard’s hand clenched on the table. “Why would he hold back?”

A pause, laden with implications, spread out between them all. “Thranduil,” Tauriel said slowly, “Is it at all possible that Azog was just waiting for all three of _us_ to be all in one place too?”

The silence that drew out between them thickened with the realization. Slowly, Thranduil’s head turned towards the curtains hanging over the window. His face was blank.

“We may be in trouble.”

From somewhere far beyond the windows came the sound of shattering glass.

It sounded as distant and tinny as if it were coming from a television in the next room. The whooping of a car alarm, which started up a split second later, seemed to drill straight through the walls. Bard felt his heart speeding up with its cries, felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise, one by one.  

Almost all the heads in the bar turned towards the door, sealed hermetically shut against the pressure of the night outside. The weight of all those eyes on it seemed to push it outwards, make its essence seem thinner, ready to burst. From the back of the room, a single voice rose: “What the hell was that?”

Hilda stepped out from behind the bar, a frown darkening her face. “Sounds like someone hit a parked car.” The faint note of doubt in her voice suggested she felt the charge in the air as much as Bard did, the distinct feeling of something very wrong appearing in the room among them. For a moment everyone in the bar exchanged glances, knowing it was perfectly normal to go and see what was causing the commotion, feeling deep in their bones that they shouldn’t.

Hilda stepped towards the door.

“Stop!” Bard’s voice tore through the unnatural silence. A dozen pairs of eyes rose to meet his, some with surprise, others with suspicion. He could feel their gazes lingering on the bruises on his neck, the dark circles around his eyes. Even his voice sounded rough. But when his eyes travelled beyond them, to the sliver of darkness edging out from behind the curtain and the neon glow of the ‘open’ sign, he knew he had to act.

“Stay away from the windows.” Bard strode forward, turning the deadbolt on the door with a hollow _clunk_. He pulled the curtains further so that not even a flicker of movement could escape to the outside. “Everyone, please. We can’t go outside.”

“Bard, what the hell are you doing?” Hilda demanded. She walked up to him, reached for the deadbolt. His hand snaked out to catch it.

“Please,” he said. Tauriel and Thranduil had stood up, their eyes pinned past the curtain. Bard could imagine their ears swiveling like a wolf’s, their animal instincts prickling.  Looking at the confusion and irritation on the faces around him, he raised his voice. “It’s not safe out there.”

He saw her eyes flicker from him to the silent pair at Bard’s back. Even holding his coat closed, the dark stain of blood was creeping over Thranduil’s clothes. When Hilda turned back to him she was far from trust. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on, Bard?”

The words seized up in his throat. The truth wasn’t a gift she would thank him for.

A woman was edging towards the windows while he spoke. Bard recognized her as Astrid, a waitress at the local diner. Before he could stop her, she had flicked back the curtain.

“That’s my car!” she cried. “Jesus, what happened to it?”

A murmur went through the crowd as people began pushing towards the window, peeling back the curtain to squint at the darkness beyond. Astrid had already tugged her car keys out of her pocket and was heading for the door. Bard stepped into her path, a warning in his eyes. 

“Astrid, please. You don’t want to do that.”

She looked at him with a smile that gathered pity at the corners. “It’s okay, Bard. I’m just going to go have a look. There’s nothing out there.”

Bard stepped backwards, pressing himself against the door. “Will you bet your life on that?”

The smile disappeared from Astrid’s face. “Get out of the way. I’m going out there whether you want me to or not.”

The man she had been sitting with stood up, taking one last swig of beer before stepping forward. “I’ll go out with her, if it makes you feel better.”

Astrid shot Bard a placating look. He felt Hilda’s hand digging into his shoulder, trying to pry him away—he saw the apology in her eyes. Bard’s gaze darted across the room, found familiar blue ones. Slowly, Thranduil shook his head. They couldn’t stop them.

Bard let himself be pulled away from the door, ignoring the way people moved away from him as he stepped aside. Astrid twisted the deadbolt open, peeked out past the door’s curtain one last time, shot a wry smile over her shoulder and tugged the door open. It scraped free of the threshold with a suck of air, letting in a bitter draft of the cold. A shiver seemed to pass through the people standing there, a sensation that they had already let something in.

“Be right back,” she said. A moment later she had her companion had stepped outside, pulling the door shut after them.

“Do me one favor, Hilda,” Bard said tiredly. “Lock it behind her.”

Shooting him an odd look, Hilda did as he asked.

Bard stepped away, rejoining Thranduil and Tauriel where they were waiting on the other side of the room. “Remind me,” Bard said in an undertone. “Will they need an invitation to get through that door?” Thranduil shook his head. “Right,” Bard said dully. “Just checking.” 

The people were clustered around the windows, talking in low voices. They were nervous. Bard could see it in their faces. The people here weren’t numb to the touch of a deeper darkness on their skin. The shrieking of the car alarm punctured each breath of the night like a fevered heartbeat. Slowly, painfully, Bard joined them at the window.

He could see two dark shapes moving down the street. One of the lamps had gone out, and in that pool of darkness the car’s lights flashed wildly with every new pulse of its alarm. He saw the pair standing around it, staring at something too far and dark to see. With a gesture, the alarm cut out, leaving a thicker silence in its wake. The lights died a moment later, and at once both their forms were absorbed by the shadow. A throb of horror lanced down Bard’s spine, as if the darkness had swallowed a piece of him with it.

Time seemed creak and groan as it stretched around that single moment. And then a shape emerged back into the light of the streetlamp, making for the bar at a brisk jog. Astrid’s features sharpened into being as she stepped up to the door. Bard had to bite down on the cries to leave the door shut as Hilda turned the lock to let Astrid back in. She stepped back into the light, offering a smile to everyone watching—but there was something different about it. Something uneasy.

“Well, something must have hit it,” she said, with a nervous grin that contained no laughter. Her eyes leapt from face to face, her fingers unconsciously picked at her sleeve. “There’s an enormous dent in the hood. No idea how it could have happened.”

Once again Hilda glanced to Bard. “See anything odd?” she pressed.

Astrid took just a second too long to answer. “No—no. Nothing weird. Just a little creepy is all. The dark, it felt… full.”

From behind him, Bard heard Tauriel’s voice. “Where’s your friend?”

The words left a vacuum in the air, a space where another body should have stood. Astrid glanced around with a mingled look of confusion, the true prickling of fear. “I… I don’t understand, he was right behind me. He must have stopped without me noticing…”

Silence followed her words. “Should someone go out for him?” Hilda asked after a long moment.

“Wait,” Bard said quickly. “Before anyone else goes outside: are there any more exterior lights you could turn on?”

Hilda paused. “There’s the security floodlights Pat installed a few years ago after that break in.”

Bard nodded. “Turn them on. Just for a moment.”

Hilda’s eyes dug into his own, searching for anything she could use to make sense of the situation. Whether she found it or not, she walked behind the bar with a sigh. Shaking her head, she reached for something under the counter. There was a faint click. Suddenly the curtains were blasted with a bright white light from outside, as if a semi-truck was about to smash straight through the front windows.

All at once, no one seemed eager to go to the window. Knowing that this was how it had to happen, Bard stepped forward. He gripped the illuminated veil with one hand, and with a single movement tugged it open.

It took a moment to register what he was seeing. The pavement that had been obliterated by darkness was suddenly lit up as clearly as day. He saw the crumple in the car’s hood, the way the metal twisted up like a grasping hand. His eyes travelled down, down to the pavement right near the car and the dark stain that had lingered just beyond the edges of the light, startlingly red. It started in a gush and dragged itself into a nearby alley. There was so very much of it.

Bard had just enough time to hear a sharp gasp of horror from behind him before the floodlight on the roof died with a shower of sparks past the window. And then it was very dark.

“Oh god!” The cry came from Astrid, whose hand was over her mouth, eyes trained on the spot past the dark window where all the blood had been. Those who hadn’t seen pressed closer to the windows, craning to see.

“Stay back!” Bard shouted.

Something smashed into the window inches from their waiting faces, strong enough to leave a spider web of cracks on the glass. Those closest screamed, struggling backwards against the ground as something moved outside. Over the shouts, over the cries to move back, the sound slid into the room as smoothly as a knife—a faint growl, deep and primal. Seconds later Bard whipped the curtain in front of the window, blocking it from view.

“What was that?” Hilda said in a voice that wavered between flight and fight. “Some kind of animal?

A flurry of conversation started up as suddenly as a gust of wind, people asking in frightened voices what was out there, if anyone else had seen anything, frantically dialing 911. Looking to Hilda’s pale face just by his shoulder, Bard knew she had seen it too. With hands that remained remarkably steady, he turned the deadbolt once again.

“Someone help me drag something in front of this door,” he said quietly. “Everyone else, stay away from the windows.”

Bard moved quickly. He tried not to listen to the increasing murmurs of panic behind him. He grabbed a table, started to drag it towards the door—a second later Thranduil was on the other side. Bard tensed for a moment, instinct tightening his hands around the wood of the table until he saw Thranduil was helping him lift it. Across the room Tauriel and Hilda were putting furniture near the windows, never opening the blinds. Bard saw something in Thranduil’s eyes, a shred of something he’d almost forgotten—not warmth, but understanding, a wary agreement that for tonight, perhaps they would have to be on the same side.

Together they lifted the table, hauled it over to the door to make a barricade. The wood settled in front of the door with a dull clunk. Bard had seen the hood of the car. Whatever could do that wouldn’t be stopped by a little wooden table.

Thranduil stepped around the table, stopping just before Bard. “He’s here.”

Bard nodded, the fist buried in his throat clenching. “I figured.”

“We need to go. Now.”

Bard laughed hollowly. “Where? Isn’t this as good a hill to die on as any?”

Thranduil’s hand moved like a striking snake, settling on Bard’s arm in a grip that threatened to make its mark on him. “I am not going to die tonight. Neither is Tauriel. Neither are you.”

Bard ought to shake the hand off, the fingers digging into him like burning brands. “And how do you plan on pulling that off?”

After a long moment, Thranduil released him. The fervor that had flared in his eyes had faded back behind the mask of the predator. Or perhaps it wasn’t the mask, but the flesh beneath—Bard was having a hard time telling the difference. “Tauriel and I have several caches of weapons spread throughout town. If we can reach one, we’ll stand a chance.”

“Where is the nearest?”

“The storage facility on the east end of town. Scarcely five minutes from here.”

“If we get out of here, will they leave these people alone?”

“Perhaps. It is more certain that if we remain, many will die.”

Bard nodded. “Right. Then we go to the storage unit. Five minutes.”

“We should leave now.”

“Not until I’ve made sure the people here will be safe.” When he saw the way Thranduil’s lips twisted with displeasure, he turned away. “Of course, you could always hazard your bets and leave me here.” He walked away without waiting for a reply.

Hilda stopped him in the midst of covering up the final window. Her mouth was hard. “You know what’s doing this, don’t you?”

Her jaw was set. Bard could see she would take no excuses. He stepped closer, his eyes moving out to the pale swath of curtain hanging over the inky windowpane. “Can’t you feel it too?” he murmured. “There’s something out there. I don’t need a name for it to know it’s evil.”

Hilda blinked, the accusation in her eyes flickering into something much more disquieted. Bard could see the horde of other questions swarming on her tongue, as well as the knowledge none of them would get anywhere. In the end, she only nodded. “What do we do?”

Bard raised his eyes to the barricade already forming. “Keep everyone together. If you hear something trying to get in, make sure you’ve got a weapon on hand. Even a table leg.” He couldn’t very well tell her to break off a stake, but it would have to do. After a moment Hilda nodded and hurried off to collect the rest of the patrons.

Tauriel stepped forward, Thranduil close behind her. “There’s a back door leading onto the gravel lot. Thranduil’s car is a short sprint away.”

Bard looked one last time to the collection of people milling around across the room, slowly being shepherded behind the bar. There was fear on their faces, and none were looking towards the three strange people standing apart from them all. He wanted to stay, wanted to help. But he was a third of the reason this was happening at all.

He followed Tauriel and Thranduil through the doorway to the back room, dimly lit with boxes of old papers and shelves of liquor collecting dust. There was only one other door, set against the back wall. They stopped just in front of it. This close, he could feel the faint breath of cold air bleeding out from around the edges, the muffled and innocuous chirping of cicadas from the trees.

“We have to go out there, don’t we?” Bard said.

“Either we go out, or they come in,” Tauriel replied.

Thranduil turned to him. “You could stay here,” he said. “When we leave, it might draw them off.”

Bard crossed his arms over his chest. “You said yourself we needed to make sure to wipe out every last one of these things. If we split up, they split up. So we stick together.”  

“Don’t be—“

“ _Thranduil_.” Bard reached inside of his coat, felt the sturdiness of the wooden stake in his inner pocket. It was still stained with Thranduil’s blood. “Trust me, I’m not at all eager to die on your behalf. But at this point I’d rather die fighting. So I’m going out there. Whether you want me to or not.”

Thranduil’s eyes wandered over Bard’s face as lightly as a fly, seeming to decipher every hard line, every muscle set in his jaw. It was hard not to feel as if Thranduil were taking him apart, inspecting how each of the pieces worked. Once that might have frightened him. Now, he knew he had a piece of himself even Thranduil couldn’t reach.

“We’re out of time,” Tauriel said softly, her sharp eyes staring past the door with the gaze of a lion fixed on a hunter in the bushes seconds after the direction of the wind changed. She turned to Bard “You have a stake?” she asked in a quiet voice.

Bard nodded. “Two.”

“Good. Be ready to use them. I’m going to break the handle off behind us so nothing can get in—which means there’s no going back. Only forward, you understand?”

Bard nodded.

At last, Thranduil gave a short nod. His pale hand reached out to settle on the door knob. There was no window in the frame of this door. Anything could have been on the other side. Bard adjusted his grip on the stake, feeling his heart beat hard inside of his chest. Even when he’d plunged this same stake into Thranduil’s chest, he had scarcely felt any fear. This was different. Now he was afraid.

“We’ll have to be quick,” he said. “My car is in the back left corner of the lot. Tauriel first, then Bard. Make straight for it, and don’t stop for anything.”

Without another word, he flung the door open.

Bard ran, following the bright flare of Tauriel’s hair out into the darkness beyond. The sound of the bar cut off like an elastic band snapping as he crossed the threshold, the warmth yanked away as quickly as if it had never been there. The trees reared up behind them like grasping fingers high above the streetlights, dark against a moonlit sky. Gravel crunched, his breath hissed in his throat. From somewhere in the underbrush a desolate cry split the air.

A piece of the shadows detached, moved across the gravel faster than Bard could believe. He had no time to cry out a warning before Tauriel was knocked down as if a giant hand had swept her aside. She snarled, her hand lashed out, and seconds later the shadow was gone and there was nothing but the taste of ash in the air.

He felt Thranduil’s hand on his back shoving him forward, yelling at him to keep going—there were other shadows now, closing in from the woods and the alley and the front of the bar, and Thranduil’s car was right in front of him and the shadows were running right up to him and his hand was on the door and he was inside. He wrenched the passenger door closed behind him just as something darted past the window, and something thudded on the hood of the car. There was a screech, a thud, and then nothing. It was too dark to see anything.

The driver’s side door popped open quickly enough to make Bard lunge halfway across the seat with a stake in his hand, but it was Thranduil who slid inside and jammed the keys into the ignition. Tauriel darted into the backseat moments later, locking the door after herself. Outside, the night had gone very quiet.

The engine tore through that silence with a dull roar, tires kicking up gravel as the car lunged forward. And they were out, out of the parking lot and onto the road, swerving into the right lane and leaving Dale’s in their wake. The windows were dark—it was impossible to see what could be happening inside. Bard’s hand tightened on the back of the chair as he watched it fall back, like a boat drifting away from him on a dark lake.

“Don’t drive too fast,” Tauriel said. “We need to make sure they follow us.”

The car slowed. The road in their headlights looked like the back of a dark serpent sliding beneath the car. Bard sat back in his seat, felt the smoothness of the leather under his hand. He felt as if he let go of the tension which ran through him like metal skewers he would simply fall apart.

In the back seat Tauriel was pulling stakes out of her pockets and lining them up on the upholstery, testing their points on her fingertips. Thranduil moved only to turn the wheel with the curves of the road. Outside, the night was as thick as black ink, and it looked almost as if they were driving underwater, gallons of darkness pushing in against the windows. There were things out there in the dark, waiting for the glass to shatter. But for now, they had approximately four and a half minutes of rest.

But he couldn’t relax. There was no familiar sensation of presence, of warmth and life from the two other bodies near his. He felt as if he was sitting alone in a car steering itself silently down roads his tired eyes could scarcely recognize. All he felt was the subconscious prickle of a predator nearby, the hunger coming off them like a blistering heat that made his throat feel scorched dry. Thranduil sat near-motionlessly, yet just under the surface Bard could feel him churn. 

Bard found himself staring, staring like he had the last time he had sat in this very seat. It struck him how the night seemed to be repeating past actions, as if time was slowly circling back around, in loops as large and inevitable as currents slowly trawling up from the depths of the ocean, only to sink back down into the abyss.

He remembered what it had been like to look over at Thranduil and see only a man. How it had felt when Thranduil would glance across the short space between them, how his eyes would wander in a way that made Bard’s teeth hurt with the smile he was biting back. After everything that happened, he’d tried to convince himself that all he’d felt was fear, that he’d mistaken the way his skin felt as if dozens of needles were standing up inside it. It made his stomach twist even now, how he still found his eyes catching on Thranduil’s hands, seeing how they gripped the wheel, remembering how they’d gripped him. The scar on his neck pulsed.

Bard forced his eyes away. He didn’t understand what Thranduil had done to him, how he’d sidled up with a smile and buried himself under Bard’s ribcage, tugging like a hook every time Bard thought he had clawed it out. Lust and cruelty danced one after another, whirling by too quickly to distinguish. He couldn’t separate the two of them, the part of him that wanted Thranduil and the part that wanted to kill him. It was too much. For tonight, all he could do was try and survive.

Before he could wander out of his thoughts the car gave a jolt so sharp that Bard’s hand flew out to steady himself, slamming into the dashboard. The tires grated on the road beneath them as they ground to a halt. Distantly, he heard Thranduil curse.

The panicked question on Bard’s lips died as he looked through the windshield. The road ahead arced in front of them for another twenty feet, and then was crushed beneath the trunk of a fallen tree. There was no wind tonight that could have blown it down. The grey of its bark was thrown into sharp relief by the headlights, as dreamlike as an overexposed photograph.

“He wants us out of the car.” Tauriel’s voice was terse, her eyes darting from tree to tree. The woods were more alive than they had been mere seconds ago. The blank shadows between the trunks seemed to be circling.

Thranduil sat with his hands on the wheel. He stared at the obstacle before them with an anger that could have only come from defeat.

“How far is the storage unit from here?” Bard said.

“Too far.” Thranduil reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a wicked length of sharpened wood and held it easily in his hand. “We’ll have to try and move it.”

Bard grabbed his arm, dragging Thranduil’s eyes to meet his own. “That’s exactly what he wants us to do.”

“And our alternatives?” Thranduil’s lips tightened into a thin line. “They have us surrounded. No matter which roads we take, the end will be the same.”  He turned back to Tauriel. She was balanced on the edge of the seat, a hand on the back of the driver’s chair, her nails resting on its surface as lightly as the legs of a spider. “Stay close to me,” Thranduil said, and Bard was shocked to hear the notes of something nearly resembling concern in his voice. Tauriel nodded, her hand tightening on the stake in her other hand.

“You will need to drive the car,” Thranduil said to Bard. “Wait until the road is clear, then drive straight through.”

“What if we can’t make it to the storage unit?” Bard pressed.

Thranduil’s hand settled on the door. “Then we make our stand here.” He met Bard’s eyes, a flash possessiveness flitting over his face. “Stay in this car. No matter what happens.”

Bard could find no words in reply.

The door flew open with a gasp of cold air, slamming shut a second later as Thranduil and Tauriel bolted outside. Bard clambered into the driver’s seat seconds later, watching the two figures step into the headlights. His hand settled on the gear shift as if it were the pommel of a sword. If he saw Thranduil ripped apart in the pitiless glow of the headlights, what would he feel? He told himself it would be a relief, even if his own death followed quickly after. He told himself it wouldn’t matter.

Tauriel and Thranduil both bent to the tree trunk before them. Bard watched as their bodies tensed, and seconds later the wood lifted a scant few inches off the road with a groan he could hear from inside the car. They began to turn it, taking a few steps, and as it moved Bard saw there was something else lying on the roadside, revealed to the brightness of the headlights as soon as the wood was shifted… His heart stood up in his throat. On impulse his hand moved to the horn, blaring out a warning—but both heads snapped to face him, questions in their eyes, and they couldn’t see his finger pointing past the white-hot glare, couldn’t hear his voice through the glass. The thing under the tree was moving, pale and creeping across the asphalt, and with a curse Bard’s hands fumbled with the door and broke the seal on the night.

“Under the tree!” he yelled, leaning out the window. “There’s something under the—”

It all happened so quickly.

The pale smudge on the road moved like a striking snake, daring towards the nearest pair of legs and latching on. Tauriel screamed as it dug into her and wrenched, yanking her clean off her feet and partially under the now-sagging tree trunk. Thranduil’s head whipped around, searching for the danger and finding it, but there were more shapes now, moving out of the trees so quickly and smoothly they almost seemed to drift, like pale luminous creatures deep underwater, and they hit Thranduil in the back and the tree slipped from his grasp. Tauriel’s leg was still beneath it when it fell.

Bard didn’t hear a snap, but her scream was like a hot knife slicing into his brain. The weight of the tree could have easily turned a human’s bones to powder, pinning her to the road as whatever had dragged her under it began to work on the flesh she couldn’t defend. It would not be long at all before her foot was torn clean off. The rest would follow then.

Bard did not hesitate. He ran, the stake in his hand, his eyes on the flicker of motion on the other side of the tree. It was moving back and forth with short, violent motions, too focused on its work to see Bard vaulting over the tree trunk, his hand raised for a blow. A pair of bulbous eyes, pupils shrunken to pin-points, rose to meet him. For a second the creature was blinded by the flush of light from behind him. The next second Bard had planted his stake in its chest.

A shriek split just by his ear, and the air was filled with the smell of dust and burning; Bard felt something give under his arm, a once-solid body scattering like leaves. The smell of blood was in the air, and Tauriel was shouting to get the tree off of her, to help get her on her feet. He heard Thranduil’s snarls, saw the creatures try to drag him down. There were too many of them. There was no time to think. 

He leapt back over the tree beside Tauriel, putting his hands on the trunk of the tree.

“It’s too heavy for you,” she said. Her voice was clipped, her face pale with pain.

“Brace your other leg against it and push,” Bard said. He did not wait to see if she understood. Throwing his weight forward he _shoved_ , felt the trunk give a tiny budge but remain still, his shoulders screaming, and then Tauriel’s free leg slammed onto the bark, rolling the tree backwards with a crack of branches. A hoarse yell tore from Tauriel’s throat as it rolled over her foot, and then she was free.

There was no time to check the damage. He grabbed her by the forearm and yanked her upright, letting her stagger against him until she had her balance. Bard turned, mind numb but his hand already raising the stake again, to see Thranduil struggling with two creatures that weren’t human, they weren’t, but God they could have been once. Their skin was spongy, sagging so far that the bones seemed to press up through the surface. Their lids hung loose around their eyes like those of a bloodhound, eyes and mouths impossibly wide, thrown open in the throes of fury or terror.

One of them crumpled into ash as Thranduil whirled, not so much as letting go of the stake in his hand as it sawed through bone and left ash in its wake. For an instant Thranduil was in the center of a flurry of snow and moonlight, white-blonde hair.

“ _Behind you!_ ” Tauriel’s scream cut through the haze of fear, and as he twisted around he felt it, the ragged wounds slicing across the skin of his back in a blow that was meant to have torn out his spine. He didn’t feel the pain at first, only the sensation of something hot and wet dripping over his skin, and then he felt it all at once—a wall of agony that hit him before the sound could leave his throat. He was on the ground, he could see Tauriel trying to lurch forward on her injured foot; from behind him he heard a snarl, knew the second attack was here.

He rolled, the pain that surged through him as he twisted from his stomach onto his back acting like a piston. A weight came crashing down on him just as he turned, and he caught it in his hand just before the teeth closed over the air in front of his throat with a _clack_. He held it away from him, arms already trembling with the effort as the creature lunged for his skin.

All at once it went limp, wet eyes turning mournfully to stare straight into his. “Just a little,” it moaned in a voice that rooted Bard to the ground. “I just need a little bit—Please, for God’s sake, I'm so hungry—” At once a spasm went through his body, and then the trace of humanity was gone. Those eyes slid from Bard’s face to his neck. He could feel the creature’s muscles tense in preparation for the shove that would break through his grip and open him up. He barely had time to twist the stake in his other hand upwards before it shoved its whole body down.  The stake punched through its sternum just as the teeth brushed his throat. Then there was nothing but a sloughing mound of ash.

The dust was on Bard’s clothes, his lips, in his eyes, and he scarcely felt Tauriel yanking him to his feet. He staggered, staring blankly at the burst of ash on his hands, breath shuddering in his chest, eyes blinking shut as if he were trying to clear them.

“There’s nothing you can do,” Tauriel said, her fingers digging into his arm. “They’re already dead.”

There were more of those things, scuttling out of the shadows with mouths that were too full of teeth not to grin, their lips slapping loosely against the inflamed flesh of their gums. They wore the clothes they’d lived and died in, store clerk uniforms, business suits torn and muddied, pajamas splattered with blood. Sometimes words were mixed with their hollow cries, pleading or screaming or spouting nonsense. Bard’s grip on the stake in his hand was slick with sweat, but he forced his hands to clench around it as he faced those rows and rows of awful teeth. He felt Tauriel press to his side as Thranduil closed in at his back, the three of them forming a knot against the pressing tide against them. They were surrounded.

A bubble of hysteria surged up through Bard’s chest, as light as laughter. His face split into a grin of terror. “You know,” he said in a voice that sounded strangely high to his ears, “I’m beginning to think I should have stayed home tonight.”

“Having second thoughts already?” Tauriel said from beside him, a stake in each hand held out in front of her, jabbing at any of the creatures that drew too near. He could hear the desperate bravado in her voice, the bright flash before the final darkness. “The fun’s only just starting.”

Teeth snapped shut, bloody foam lit up by the headlights flying to the pavement like white-hot embers. Bard could imagine what those teeth would do to him. He could see the hunger in their eyes. They would make no effort to kill him quickly. He turned to his other side, watching the circle of mad eyes and gnashing teeth jostling ever close.

That was when he saw it.

The road disappeared into a blank wall of darkness where the headlights couldn’t reach. The trees curled around that emptiness like the frame of a massive black door, flung open on some distant void. But there was something more. A flicker of light that grew closer and brighter, reflecting out from the darkness like a torch. Someone was coming, walking down the middle of the road, the glint of something metallic in one of their hands.

A desperate hope twisted in Bard’s chest—could it be someone was coming to help? He turned to Thranduil, the rallying cry already on his lips. Then he saw Thranduil’s face, the eyes that had seen the approaching figure long before Bard. There was nothing but desolation. When Bard turned back to face those slow, ponderous footsteps, he realized why.

It was pale, as pale as something that had never seen sunlight. Its form was hunched, rippled with tumorous muscles under a hide crosshatched with scars. The hand which Bard had thought held a knife was no hand at all—the piece of metal welded into inflamed flesh ended in a twisted claw. Its jaws were thick, barbed teeth protruding from thin lips like chips of ice. Under heavy brows, eyes bright with twisted intelligence inspected them coldly. Azog. The knowledge of that name seared into Bard’s mind like a brand.

The circle broke, moving back to allow Azog through. He stopped just beyond the line, inspecting the three of them with lifeless eyes. After a long moment, a grin twisted over his face, revealing the teeth below.

Azog’s mouth opened, and some guttural sound emerged that Bard could not even define as language, except for the terrible meaning laced behind each syllable. He understood only the thrill of terror it sent shooting into his stomach.

“What’s he saying?” he whispered to Tauriel.

Her eyes were hard. “He’s describing what he’s going to do to our bodies. The usual stuff.”

At the sound of Bard’s voice, Azog’s gaze shot to him like the loosing of an arrow. Their eyes met. Bard felt something icy and alien plunging into his mind, as if a plug had been removed and he was filling up with cold, lightless water, numbing him to the core. He saw a terrible knowledge sprouting in those eyes, Bard’s face filed away into an ancient brain that would never, ever forget it.

“What’s this, _golug_?” he said in a voice like shifting stone, eyes moving back to Thranduil with a glint of cold amusement. “Surely that is not a human I see at your side.”

Thranduil said nothing, but Bard saw the minute shifting of his hand on his stake, the whiteness in his knuckles.

 Azog shook his head. His movements were languid, his smile lazy—he was enjoying this. “You have fallen far,” he murmured. “My master recognized your corruption long ago. It will be my pleasure to bring you before him, and watch as he finishes burning the filth from our bloodline.”

“The pleasure will be mine, when I tear your head from your shoulders,” Thranduil spat back.

Azog chuckled. “Such viciousness doesn’t befit you. You should simply stand back and do nothing as your allies fall before you—such cowardice came naturally to you in the past.” Bard could feel the tension in Thranduil’s muscles, how they bunched with cold fury.

Azog’s face twisted in a vicious sneer as his eyes settled back on Bard. Something dark and low rippled from Tauriel’s throat that raised all the remaining hairs on the back of Bard’s neck. His thoughts seemed to be creeping along, stuck in ice, stuck in that cold place behind Azog’s eyes. “A deal, _shara_ ,” he said. “Put that piece of wood through the red one’s heart, and I’ll make you as beautiful as my creatures here.” His hand drifted over the hairless heads of one of the fledglings. Its form trembled beneath his touch. Bard felt nausea sinking deep into his being, yet he couldn’t turn away.

Thranduil’s voice lashed out as sharp as the crack of a whip, furious words tumbling from his lips in a different tongue that Bard could not understand. Azog merely laughed again.

“Such devotion. Yet never placed with whom it belongs.” He took a step forward, and Bard had to resist the urge to leap away, to run screaming in the other direction. He held his ground. Something was building in Thranduil beside him, roaring towards the surface like a freight train. When Azog came to a stop not ten feet away, Bard could feel the tension radiating from him like waves of heat.

“I wonder,” Azog mused, leaning forward ever so slightly. “When your friends die before your eyes, will you scream as you did all those years ago? I still recall the sweetness of it, how you howled as the flames began to rise…” His head tilted to the side. “Remind me, what was her name? You screamed it so many times, I really ought to—”

Bard felt, rather than saw, Thranduil act. His arm whipped up, there was a whistle something moving through the air, and then Azog was screaming with his hands clawing at his face. Bard saw the stake buried in his left eye, the foul black blood dripping out beneath it. The creatures around them chittered nervously in shared pain, the circle around them loosening.

In a split second Thranduil lunged forward with a second stake in his hand. It plunged through two separate chest cavities before the creatures seemed aware of what was happening. Bard whirled to those closest to him as Tauriel charged into the fray before him; her unearthly shriek broke over the enemy like a physical force, driving them further back with animal fear as she took them.

There was nothing else to do but keep fighting. One of the creatures charged at him from the forest, mouth hanging open and hands reaching out. Bard ran forward to meet them and planted the stake in its chest, watching its expression peel away like chips of paint. Tauriel danced and wove, striking out at the pallid bodies like, fire playing across marble and leaving only ash in her wake. It rose up in the air like a foul mist that the headlights of the car turned nearly opaque. Figures loomed out of the haze at him, and with muscles that screamed with the effort he hewed them down.

He squinted through the haze as the shapes circled around him, seeking out the familiar flash of pale hair nearby. Roars and unearthly screams sounded from their fight, as well as the scrape of feet and that horrible metallic arm on the pavement. Bard could scarcely make out more than a blur of motion, Thranduil ducking and jabbing and dancing out of the blind spot left from the stake still protruding from Azog’s eye. His movements were so fast, so graceful, it seemed only a matter of time before he won. Bard felt his heart raise, felt hope begin to surge again—before Azog’s arm swung in an inevitable arc that ended against Thranduil’s ribs, sending him flying with a faint crunch.

He hit the pavement with a chiming of broken glass, hair splaying as he rolled. Slowly, patiently, Azog walked after him, metallic arm raised. Bard felt an icy wave of horror slam into the bottom of his stomach. Tauriel’s motions were growing clumsier, each blow spinning her further out of control with its force, each block just a split-second later. There were too many. In just a few moments it would all be over. Unless—unless.

And he was moving, dodging and lashing out with his stake, driving the creatures away as he gained ground—towards what, his mind could scarcely articulate, only that he had to get there and he had to get there now. The glow of the headlights seared into him like the dawn, and he ran towards them without hesitation.

The plan was forming in his mind, beautiful in its simplicity, and as he drove the stake into a fledgling's shoulder there was no time to wrench it free before his attacker went wailing back to the shadows. He pulled his second and last stake from his pocket. Just a few more seconds and he'd be there. The creatures were closing in, more and more of them following his trail as he moved further away from Thranduil and Tauriel, but the car was only a short sprint away—he heard his name being shouted in a familiar voice as he plunged his stake into one last chest, not stopping to rip it free as he tore across the distance to the driver’s side door. He could feel the hungry, grasping hands closing around him as his hand closed around the cold door handle, wrenched it free to safety—and it didn’t budge.  _Locked_. 

The realization passed through his mind seconds before they were on him. He dodged to the side just in time to let the first of the bodies slam into the door where he had stood, hitting the metal with a dull thud and a shower of broken glass. Sharp claws grasped at him and he didn’t have a stake, didn’t have anything to fight them off with. He felt the hands scrabbling at him, trying to drag him to the ground, and once he hit the ground it would be over. Feeding frenzy. His hand grasped blindly for something, found the broken window and a shard of glass there, felt it cutting into his palm as he gripped it and lashed out, and suddenly the pain and pressure digging into his arms was gone and the glass had come apart in his hands in a burst of red.

This time he reached for the knob just inside the door, pulled it free as something else rushed towards him with doglike fangs bared and a nametag he couldn’t read. He wrenched the door open and slammed it into their body hard enough to send them flying.

Seconds later he was in the car, keys fumbled into the ignition and starting it with an arthritic gasp, and there was no time to think about what he was doing or whether this would work, the gas was to the floor and the tires were screaming and the hands reaching through the broken window clawed past his face and then were gone, the headlights blasting a patch of white light ahead of him that lit up the ash drifting in the street, his hand fumbling the seatbelt over his waist, Tauriel fighting to keep the creatures at bay, and Thranduil—

Even then, even as the car lurched forward and hummed with gathering speed, wind licking past the cold sweat on Bard’s face, time began to slow. In front of him, Azog—Azog, holding something bulky up by his clawed hand, a hand which had skewered Thranduil through the chest and hoisted him into the air. Bard could see he was alive, knew faintly that such a wound couldn’t kill him. Thranduil's hands grasped weakly at the metal, eyes fixed on one thing only—the stake still protruding from Azog’s eye.  

All of this, Bard saw in a single fractured second. Then the truck hit Azog dead on.

The impact sent his head slamming forward to meet the airbags, the crash of glass and twisted metal shaking him out of his head and floating loose for a moment that stretched out so long he thought the fighting could be over. Weakly, his hands battered away at the material of the air bag, struggling to see through the windshield, to see what had happened.

“Bard—” The hoarse cry caught his attention from somewhere outside the passenger door. He turned his head, swiveling on a stiff neck to see Thranduil on the asphalt, a new set of holes punched in his chest. But he wasn’t looking at Bard. He was looking at something below.

Bard wasn’t touching the gas, but suddenly the car heaved itself off the ground as if it had been struck by something from underneath. Once, then twice, shaking Bard like a rag doll, and he reached to unclasp his seatbelt and dive out the door as a low, metallic groan split the air. His seatbelt unlocked, he struggled free, reaching for the door—

The world turned on its side as the final impact sent the car rolling, gravity yanking Bard forward and backwards and onto the ceiling, broken glass pattering down around him like water droplets. And then everything was still.

For a moment he didn’t know where he was, what had happened—his shoulders screamed with pain as he straightened out, lying back-down on the upturned interior of the car, staring at the ground through the top of the window without understanding what he was seeing. 

A pair of heavy booted feet scraped across the upside-down roadside and came to rest just outside the window. It struck Bard as funny, that maybe he should call out and warn them not to fall off the face of the earth. But then the knees bent, the terrible eyes swam into view, and by then it was too late to drag himself away, by then Azog had him by the throat.

As his body was yanked through the open window he felt the ragged glass tearing at his clothes, through his clothes, but at the same time he hardly felt it—he was looking at those eyes again, as foreign as the bottom of the ocean, pale and distant and hosting a hundred monstrous things that had never seen the light. He felt himself being lifted, his windpipe closing with the pressure before his back slammed against the upturned undercarriage of the car.

But Bard could see the gashes on Azog’s body that hadn’t been there before, the way his chest caved in and half his body seemed to slump—Bard had done that. He couldn’t help but feel some satisfaction at that, looking at the twisted remains of the violence he’d done, knowing he’d left his mark on the thing that was about to kill him. Perhaps this was how Thranduil had felt as Bard plunged the stake into his chest. Bard stared up at the sky as the hand around his neck began to squeeze, his own hands scrabbling blindly for anything to hold on to. He found the stake still lodged in Azog’s eye socket.  

His fingers grasped it numbly, twisting, levering. He saw the agony spreading out over Azog’s face, the feral snarl, the relentless tightening. With hands that felt like lifeless dough, Bard finally heaved it free. It made a sound like water sucking down a drain.

Even then the grip on Bard’s throat did not falter. His vision scarred over with colorless dots, he could only feel the stake beneath his hand—nearly slipping from fingers that felt as fat as leeches— he could see Azog’s mouth moving, heard the laugh as dry as the clatter of dirt on the lid of a coffin. Bard immediately knew he was dying, knew from the way his head seem to scatter like marbles across the asphalt, and even then, even then he lifted the stake, even then he pressed it to the pale, festering hollow above Azog’s heart. The skin there was scarred with dozens of marks, dozens of failures. Bard’s strength was gone. He could not push it home.

His vision wavered, began to fail.

A cry shattered the air.

And then Azog was shoved forward by a massive impact from behind—shoved onto the stake Bard held to his breast.

Bard was aware of the pressure, the weight pushing down on him and pushing out of his skull—and then the grip on his neck was loosening, and Azog’s face swam into his vision. It was smooth now, the snarl replaced with faint confusion. Neck tilting forward, Bard found himself staring dumbly at the stake still clenched in his hands, now buried between Azog’s ribs. Something black and bitter-smelling drooled from the edges of the wound.

And then Azog stumbled backwards, and Bard’s vision tilted as he slid to the ground, not even feeling the impact. Azog stared blankly down at the piece of wood in his chest, that same vague expression of bewilderment. Bard could do nothing but watch, slumped against the broken edge of the car. The metallic hand rose as if to probe the wound just as Azog’s knees buckled. In the place where he had been standing Bard saw Thranduil, Thranduil stepping around Azog with bitterly cold eyes. Azog’s gaze travelled from the stake in his chest to Thranduil and then, finally, to Bard. It was Bard he looked at in the end, right until the moment Thranduil rose his foot and stomped the stake the rest of the way through Azog’s heart.

For one, brief moment, there was utter silence.

Then the howling began, a cacophony of babbles and shrieks skewering up into the sky, as panic descended over the ranks of Azog’s creatures Tauriel had still left standing. Their limbs went out from under them, they clutched the sides of their heads and scuttled like crabs, like wounded dogs—some turned on each other, biting chunks of blackened, oozing flesh from each other’s necks. Many simply ran, shouting words that Bard could not connect to reality, their hands slapping at the tree branches that clawed at their eyes.

Thranduil’s back was still turned to him, his shoulders stiff as he stared down at Azog’s body. It hadn’t disintegrated like the others—it lay there like a pale monument, looking closer to human in death than it ever had in motion. It was strange the way Thranduil’s chest did not heave with breath, the way his fingers lay by his side without a tremble. But he was no more alive than Azog had been, and no more human either.

Finally, he turned. Bard’s breath hissed sharply in his chest as their eyes met, the same sensation of floating somewhere distant and cold rushing into him just as it had when Azog captured his gaze—but it wasn’t the same, because this was Thranduil, and rather than crushing the life from him Bard felt as if the cold was gently dissolving him, floating him deeper towards the smooth, moss-slicked stones beneath him, away from the light and the rough, ragged air.

Tauriel stepped into his line of vision, her injured foot dragging on the ground with a steady scrape. Her mouth was stained with gore, and every motion sent ash drifting from her clothes like exhalations of smoke. She looked as if she were having difficulty staying on two feet, not because of her injuries but because something animal had awakened inside of her, something feral.

“They’ve fled,” she said simply. “They won’t make it far.”

Thranduil nodded. “Make sure of it.”

With a flash of red hair, Tauriel was gone, limping into the woods faster than her wound should have allowed her, following the peals of terror from half-dead throats. 

Bard sat still with his back to the car as Thranduil approached. He scarcely felt Thranduil’s hand on his shoulder as the other man sank down into a crouch before him, the movement slow and painful. His hands gently tilted Bard’s throat to inspect the place where Azog had nearly succeeded in snapping his neck. As still as they had looked, Bard could feel a faint tremor in Thranduil’s fingertips where they met his skin.

“Are you alright?” he asked. His voice sounded rough, as if there was a strange rattle in it.

Bard nodded, opening his mouth with the beginning of words but cutting off with a wince. 

After a moment, Thranduil held out a hand. Bard stared at it, the long tapered fingers smeared with ash and black blood. And suddenly Bard was in a different place, in a different time, sitting in the passenger seat of Thranduil’s car with his own hand held out, a nervous smile on his lips. How Thranduil’s hand had slid across his own, dragging along with it the thrill of touching the unknown, of stepping into a pitch-black room with only one door. It was only then that he realized that Thranduil had left his mark on him from the moment they first touched, the lingering coolness of his palm seeping into Bard’s blood like the chill of a fever, a virus that had become a part of him.

When he took Thranduil’s hand and felt himself lifted up, he could feel it in him still. The brush of something impossibly remote, something only a hair’s-breadth away.

Thranduil helped him up, the pressure of his hands steadying Bard’s shoulder, his arm. He looked out over the road, the landscape of broken glass, twisted metal, and drifting ash. A faint hiss, quieter than sound, lingered in the air—the sound of everything finally settling down.

“Azog's body won't disintegrate,” Thranduil said. His voice was dull with exhaustion. “We'll have to burn it.”

 

* * *

 

They walked into the forest until they couldn’t see the road, and there they began to dig. Thranduil went back while Bard carved a shallow grave out of the earth, using the shovel that Thranduil had in the back of his car. Bard didn’t ask why he had it. He didn’t want to know.

Thranduil returned a long while later, dragging the body behind him. Bard was surprised by the stiffness in his movements, the way his skin looked flat and pallid on his face. But with Bard’s help they rolled Azog’s corpse into the depression in the earth, and Thranduil took a pack of matches from the pocket where Bard remembered he kept his cigarettes. They needed no kindling to light the body. The tiny flame took to Azog’s flesh like it was woven out of dried grass, as if it was already burning up with some incredible heat inside.

For a long time they only stood there, silent, watching the pale flesh blacken and curl, the metal protruding from the stump of the arm glowing red-hot amid the fire. The body seemed to shrink, cringing away from the flames that ravaged it. A smell like sickness rose from the pit in the earth, sour and unclean. Even when the heat became nearly unbearable, Bard did not step back. He wanted to see it happen, to watch it burn until there was nothing left. He just had to be sure that it wasn’t coming back.

“What was he talking about?” Bard’s question was punctuated by the pop of the flames. “The name he mentioned. Who was it?” Thranduil turned to him, eyes dull. It seemed that the more the body burned, the more he slumped into himself. His coat was buttoned over his chest, and Bard couldn’t remember when he had done that.

“Someone I cared about,” Thranduil said hollowly. There was an unhealthy rasp in his throat. Bard thought about how he could comment on that, all the ways he could dig into Thranduil’s words and pull them apart—that there was no one he cared about, that he was incapable of caring. He said nothing. He found no reason to.

Bard wondered at it then, how hours ago he had stood in these same woods and slammed a stake into Thranduil’s chest. How if he had succeeded, if the stake had found its mark, then Bard would be dead now too. How much blood did it take to irrevocably bind two people together? They’d spilled plenty of it.

Bard raised his head, his eyes drifting over to Thranduil’s face. “Things are going to be different now, aren’t they.” It was not a question.

While he watched Thranduil, Thranduil watched the flames. They danced in his eyes, twisting and writhing like two candles in a wide open room.

“Yes,” Thranduil said at last, in a voice that buckled around the edges. “I suppose they already are.”

A faint whistle from the fire-pit drew Bard’s eyes back, just as the last of Azog’s withered flesh is consumed by the heat. The flames clung to the dirt beneath them digging yellow fingertips into the soil in search of purchase, but before long the last of them were guttering out with nothing left to burn. In their place there was only a faint layer of ash, and the cruel metal barb of Azog’s arm, still glowing with a fierce heat.

Thranduil sighed as the final light went out, his shoulders shuddering with the motion. “It isn’t over yet. There will be others, always others, and never any rest…”

Bard looked at him strangely, the meandering of Thranduil’s voice striking him as odd. Thranduil continued to stare down at the hole in the earth, only a faint red glow and the touch of moonlight illuminating his face. Bard scarcely noticed him begin to sway until he was already falling.

As if the strength has suddenly fled from his limbs Thranduil staggered backwards, his back hitting the tree behind him and driving a soft exhalation past his lips. Bard was moving forward before he could question what he was doing, and when he caught Thranduil’s shoulders his grip was the only thing that stopped Thranduil from sliding to the ground. This close, Thranduil’s skin was as flat and sickly as milk. After a moment’s hesitation Bard pressed a hand to that cheek, felt its icy cold. Fear flickered in the pit of Bard’s stomach, though what he was afraid of he couldn’t say.

“Thranduil?” he pressed, tightening his grip on his shoulders. “What’s happening? What’s wrong?”

Thranduil’s eyes blinked in staccato, roving aimlessly without seeing. When Bard spoke they settle on his face, drifting halfway closed—Bard saw him raise a hand, felt it fumbling at the lapels of Bard’s coat.

“I won’t let him,” he said, on a breath scarcely more than a wheeze. “I won’t let him.”

“Thranduil, listen to me,” Bard said, but his voice trailed off as his eyes lowered to Thranduil’s chest. As Thranduil’s head sagged forward, sending his blonde hair falling about his face, Bard reached down and undid the row of buttons with a rising sense of dread. The light was scarcely enough to see by, but he didn’t need much to see the stain covering the front of Thranduil’s chest like ink. His shirt was little more than a rag, torn up along with a good amount of the skin beneath it—Bard remembered the way that Azog had plunged that metal spike into Thranduil’s chest, how he’d twisted it.   

Thranduil’s head moved on his neck as if his muscles could not support it. “It is nothing,” he said. “I only need a moment, to rest…”

Bard stared at him, wondering whether that was true, wondering what he would do if it wasn’t.

“Are you afraid for me?” Thranduil whispered.

Bard’s words stopped in his throat. He couldn’t even answer the question himself. He settled instead for a weak smile. “Well, like you said: You’re the only thing standing between me and agonizing death.”

“So you _do_ listen…” Thranduil sighed.

Bard’s lips twisted as the faint eddies of bitterness returned to him. “Of course, that’s based on the assumption that you won’t kill me first.”

Thranduil’s eyes slid up to his again; a lazy smile spread over his lips, languid and dangerous. It was only then that Bard realized Thranduil was holding him too, that the hand digging into his coat and the hand around the back of his neck were anchoring him fast in place. “Killing you would bring me great pleasure,” Thranduil murmured in a voice that slid over Bard’s skin like the brush of silk. “But not as much pleasure as it will bring me to keep you alive.”

Bard could feel Thranduil tugging on him, trying to drag him closer with strength that drained away by the second. Thranduil’s eyes were delirious, that distant smile still spread over his lips. He leaned across the scant distance between them and Bard felt the press of Thranduil’s nose dragging from his jawline to his cheek, felt the murmur of his lips on his skin.

“You’re mine. Mine. And no one can take you away… no one.” Bard struggled to push him away without knocking him to the ground, heart beating faster at the press of those familiar teeth beneath Thranduil’s lips. Yet there was no sudden pain, no flutter of darkness descending on him—Thranduil was too far gone, his mouth roving over Bard’s skin and leaving that one word in its wake: _mine_. It sent something shivering down Bard’s back and settling in the pit of his stomach, curling there even after Thranduil’s hands fell away from him, as Thranduil finally slumped into unconsciousness.  

Trying to ignore the way his heart was slamming against his ribs, Bard let him slide to the ground, lowering him as gently as he could. Thranduil’s head lolled on his neck, his body slumped to the side—Bard doubted he would wake for hours, perhaps even longer.

Staring down at Thranduil, Bard could not remember him ever looking so at peace. Even the inner restlessness constantly flicking at his skin from beneath the surface was gone. Thranduil could have been dead, or sleeping. He could have almost been human.

It would be so easy. He’d have time to find a stake, to line it up perfectly over the ruin of Thranduil’s chest. He wouldn’t even need to do it that way—he could just leave, counting that Thranduil wouldn’t wake until morning, until the burning of his skin in the sunlight dragged him into consciousness for just long enough to die. Bard could be out of town to collect his children before Tauriel so much as realized what had happened. Finally, he could be free.

The thought was enough to put a bitter smile on his lips, one that twisted deep inside of himself. No. He would not be free. No matter how far he ran, no matter how many bodies he burned, he could never be sure—could never know that those shadows wouldn’t be drifting closer, those sagging mouths with their razor teeth opening to him and his family. But it was more than just protection, more than self-preservation. There would always be that piece inside himself—the piece Thranduil had laid his mark on. And he’d never be free from that.

He bent down and dug through Thranduil's pockets, until the keys to the promised storage unit were jingling in Bard's hand. He knew it was down the road. Somehow, they'd have to make it there. Bard tugged on Thranduil's limp arm, shifting the body until he could hoist Thranduil over his shoulders. The weight made the wounds on his back sear with fresh pain. His breath came ragged in his aching throat, but he could see the faint lights of the upturned car’s headlights guiding him back towards the road.

Bard began to walk. With every halting step, the woods around him seemed to grow just a little darker. Perhaps it was because in his heart, he was beginning to understand.

There was no going back.

 

 


	11. Part One: Epilogue

_There is no light, no heat, no trembling of sound in all the world._

_There is only silence, only darkness; only the cold of something remote and lifeless, deep beneath the earth, waiting behind the stars. There are no stars, no moon. The sky is empty. There is only him._

_Ash and smoke hang in the air, and the smell of blood entwining beneath them like red-tipped thorns. He follows it. The trees step aside to let him pass. It is dark all around him, dark all inside him, and shining on the curve of his eye comes two points of light: one of fire leaping from the ground, and the beacon of a warm body which burns even brighter. The impulse stirs, to take that living thing into himself and crush it into nothingness. He inspects the notion, lets it fall away into the black. Not yet. Not yet._

_He watches. There is another, a blue void in the shape of a man. Another one of his kind, smelling of hunger and bitterness and the arid pang of time. Deep in the clicking machinations of his brain, the recognition quietly slots into place as inevitable as the turning of a gear, all teeth and metal. He knows this one. He remembers the screams._

_The two stand together, one burning with life and the other like an empty, decrepit house. They are watching as the final pieces of his sire curl into blackened ash. And he watches them, no anger, no grief echoing in the chasms within him. As Azog died he had felt the snap of wood in his breast as if it were his own, and even now he can feel the flames digging eager fingers into his skin. He experiences such sensations as if they were only reflections in a mirror._

_The fire dies at last. Light shrivels up until the island is gone, and the two figures are anchored far beneath the surface of darkness. He can hear them whispering among themselves, short bursts of sound and air. He observes as the one he is hunting sloughs to the ground like a pillar of dead flesh._

_Thoughts descend like buzzing flies. He could do it now. There would be no warning, no escape. He would simply slide past the trees, and there would be only the sudden bark of terror, the rising of a fruitless hand to stop the fall of his teeth, only the noises prey made as they were pulled apart. He recalls the screams that started high with panic then descended into something else, nothing but shallow breaths, exhaling the cries echoing deep inside flesh too paralyzed with death to release them. He had looked into the eyes of those he was eating. They never believed what was happening to them, until the end. The bodies they knew became red, skinless, painstakingly twisted into unrecognizable shapes, and it was only just before their eyes glazed over they understood that they were dead._

_Certain spiders crawl from their egg sacs and eat their mothers alive. He is no more capable of cruelty than they are._

_Something clicks in the back of his throat, like a ragged fingernail catching against cloth. He watches as his prey slings the cold one over its back and staggers back towards the field of ash, each faltering step an invitation. The call of the hunt stirs no excitement. He is something dead and cold, drifting in the dark, not hunting, only devouring._

_But this prey is not his to consume._

_He watches as they move away, receding into the darkness like a torch being borne away deeper into the trees until at last it is snuffed out.  He allows them to go. There is a different end waiting for them, out of their sight but rushing closer and closer with a sound like fluttering wings. When it arrives, only then will they understand. Only then will they wish they had died this night._

_He turns and drifts through the trees, as still and fluid as a pale specter under the branches. Cries echo through the woods, shrieks of terror as his sire’s wretched creations are destroyed, one by one. The leaves tremble with each new howl. The sound of their pain makes his teeth clip together in faint satisfaction, dry razors shifting behind his teeth. The trees will remember those screams, will whisper them in the wind at night. They are the first sign of things to come. A harbinger, just as he is._

_When his master returns, those screams will rise again. And this time, in their wake, there will be only silence._


	12. Chapter 12

  _Two months later._

 

The fabric of her pillow was cool against her cheek as Sigrid lay awake in bed. Her eyes were closed. Her breathing was level. These were all conscious decisions on her part. Sleep waited somewhere just outside her grasp like a figure pausing in a doorway, but she couldn’t invite it in. Not yet.

Maybe it wouldn’t happen tonight. Maybe she could go to sleep.

A sigh passed her lips. Her mind began to unspool, unraveling into the darkness behind her eyes—

—from the floor below, a creak. 

Sigrid’s eyes snapped open. Her breathing had stilled in her throat as if a knife were laid across it. She listened, every fiber of her body bent towards the sound. There was nothing. And then—again, so softly it could have been mistaken for nothing. The sound of shuffling movement from somewhere below, lonely and desolate in the silent house. There was no familiar hum of electricity when the old circuits were coaxed back to life—whatever moved below, it moved in darkness. The little creaks wandered through the ground floor. They could have been the mindless, nighttime stirrings of some wild animal, shuffling through the house mute and dumb and aimless. Sigrid knew it wasn’t.

She stared at the shapes the moonlight made on the wall across from her and tested out the idea of pretending she hadn’t heard. She was comfortable, but more than that she was exhausted, and she shouldn’t have to do this, and it wasn’t fair—but these were familiar thoughts, and she greeted each one with tired recognition as they flitted through her mind. Lately it seemed she was incapable of no thoughts or emotions she hadn’t already felt before, felt so many times they dug painful ruts into her brain. She’d tried to ignore those faint little creaks, as quiet as a pointed cough. She knew the way those sounds would climb into her mind, stirring even when she pulled the pillow over her head, when she squeezed her eyes shut and wished she could be anywhere but in this house.

Cold sloshed around her bare feet like ocean water as she peeled back the blankets and swung her legs out of bed. Her steps rolled around the edges of her soles, smarting against the cold floorboards as she made her way to the door. It opened on a hallway painted grey by moonlight. Her hand hesitated on the light switch, as it always did. Bain and Tilda’s doors waited silently beside her own. She didn’t want to wake them. Her fear could at least buy them a good night’s sleep.

In darkness Sigrid padded down the hallway to the top of the stairs. They opened up beneath her like a void, and she followed them down. Just like last night, and two nights before that, and like all the nights that lined up in a neat row before her. Her hands clenched into fists.

She reached the last of the steps. The hallway stretched in front of her like a backbone running through the center of the house—at its end, the front door. Sigrid froze. Something was watching her from the other end of the hallway. She was sure of it, sure that as she’d hurried down the stairs something else had been hurrying up the hallway, that they had both surprised each other into stillness from opposite ends of the hall. There was nothing there, of course—nothing but whatever ghosts had risen with her to track down the faint sound of footsteps from the kitchen.

 _This is my house_ , Sigrid wanted to say. _You shouldn’t be here_. But who or what she would speak to she couldn’t know, so she clamped her teeth onto her tongue. The kitchen was the first door to the left, and that was where the sounds had faded to. Sigrid held her breath in her chest like a talisman as she hurried the few steps to the door, moving closer and closer to whatever waited (or didn’t wait) at the end of the hall. She ducked past the doorway, feeling the weight of that empty hallway leaning on her shoulders, and pressed her back to the kitchen wall. It was only after a few desperate beats of her heart had thudded by that she remembered why she was here, that she looked into the bright-dark moonlit shadows and saw the figure there.

The open curtains let in ash-colored moonlight, just enough to see by. The figure was standing, facing the kitchen door. It swayed on its feet like a puppet dangling from its strings, staring blindly out the glass pane in the door. For a moment Sigrid stood frozen, a shudder slicing through the warmth of her clothes to prickle like frost on her skin. And then, with the sudden, frantic motion of a sleeper just pulled from a nightmare, her hand snaked out to flip the kitchen light on.

The ash-painted figure, the blank windowpane—all were wiped out in a single flicker of light. What was left, motionless under the fluorescent light, was her father.

There was a dark V on the back of his shirt where he’d sweated through it in the night. Sigrid could not see his face, but she knew his eyes would be closed—there was something about the slumped roundness of his shoulders, the nodding of his head, the absence of that tension which had slowly come to define him. The sudden light had done nothing to stir him from whatever dreams held him in their grasp. He merely swayed in front of the kitchen door, and after a long moment, rose his hand to open it.

“Da?” Sigrid’s voice was sharp, her heart pounding in her chest. The hand paused a few inches from the door handle before falling away again. Guilt and fear joined hands and spun circles around her heart. What if she had rolled over in bed and put those nightly footsteps out of her mind? Would he have walked clear out of the house, past the tree line, only to wake up disoriented with no way of finding his way home again? It was so very cold out there. There was a chance he would never have made it back.

The thought lent her enough guilt and fear to take the first step forward. Even under the lights, her father’s silent form hardly seemed to resemble him. The closer she got, more frantically her heart twisted and lunged in her chest. His back was expressionless. She half-expected him to whirl around at any moment, his face twisted and monstrous and not his own, or to crumble to dust as soon as she reached out her hand. Clamping her jaws tightly shut, she reached out and set her hand on her father’s shoulder.

Even through the fabric of his shirt, Bard’s shoulder felt almost cold to the touch. The warmth of Sigrid’s hand did nothing to rouse him. With gentle pressure, she managed to turn him away from the door. His feet shuffled numbly beneath him, his head rolling on his neck as Sigrid finally saw his face. It was smooth, almost childlike, with none of the worries pulling creases in from the inside like there were whenever he was awake. He stood, waiting, or listening, or perhaps doing nothing but dreaming.

Everything about him was still, except the eyes. Dreams flickered and twitched across his eyelids like clouds rushing over a plain. Sigrid wondered what he was seeing, what could smooth his face into the peace of a death-mask yet send him shambling through the house night after night. Perhaps he was dreaming of Sigrid’s mother. A tight knot formed in her stomach.

“Da. Wake up.” Her voice wasn’t as gentle as it could be, and if her shaking became a little more insistent, well—she was tired. And she was scared.

Her father’s eyes rolled madly beneath their lids for one final moment before Sigrid’s voice brought him back. His head tilted forward, his breathing quickened, and then his eyes were open. For a moment, he stared at his daughter with absolutely no recognition. Then the worry lines appeared again.

“Sigrid?” He blinked as if sleep was still sticking to his eyelashes. “What—where am—“

“You were sleep walking again.”

His eyes closed again, as if he were dredging his words up from deep in his memory. “I’m sorry, I thought—I thought it was time—Wasn’t he here? Wasn’t he waiting?” His voice came out thick, muffled.

“There’s no one here, Da,” Sigrid said. She kept her voice carefully neutral. She could hazard a guess a to who ‘he’ was.

“I just wanted to—I thought it was the right day, I was going to go out…” The words made no sense to Sigrid—her father was still walking in a dream. But Sigrid found her grip on his shoulders tightening all the same.

“What day, Da?” she pressed. “Where were you going?”

But her father’s face resembled itself again, and his eyes had lost their dullness. They focused on Sigrid’s face, shadowed by a faint frown.

“No idea,” he said thickly. “I… I must have been dreaming.”

Sigrid said nothing in reply. She couldn’t even bring herself to be angry at her father for lying anymore—all she felt was a tightening of disappointment, one which Bard was still too distant to notice.

She led him back to his room as he slumped his way back to the bed with heavy, sleep-laden steps. The sheets were tangled, but he collapsed on them with a final mutter, already asleep again. Sigrid stood over him for a long moment, staring blankly at her father’s face and resisting the urge to shake him, to demand an answer to questions she couldn’t even articulate to herself. Instead, she simply tugged the blanket over him and ignored the twinge of grief in her heart.

No, it wasn’t fair—not fair for her to have to take care of the person who was meant to care for her. It hadn’t been fair after Ma had died, and it wasn’t fair now. But at least back then, Sigrid understood all too well what her father was going through.

When she stepped back into the hallway alone, the sense of another presence was gone. Everything looked as it always did, but edged with something bitter and ugly. Sigrid wasn’t sure when that feeling had crept into their house, but she knew it had come in on her father’s heels. She would try not to begrudge him that.

She trooped back up the stairs and made her way to the sliver of moonlight at the end of the hall spilling out from her door.

“Sigrid?”

She whirled around, the familiarity of the voice lagging behind the sudden shock of fear. In an instant she saw Bain’s door was cracked open, and his freckled face staring out at her from the gloom. It was too dark to read his expression, but she knew it would show nothing good.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Da’s back in bed.”

“I know.” Bain lingered in the doorway, awkward. After a moment Sigrid stepped closer. She could see the worry now, the rounded edges of his face drawn just a little tighter. He may have only been two and a half years younger than her, but he looked so much like the little kid who had slept on the living room floor beside her for two weeks, because their rooms didn’t feel safe after their mother died. The connection clamped a fist around Sigrid’s throat.

Bain met her gaze unflinchingly. Even through the worry, she could see that familiar resolve. She had it. So did their father. “Is Da okay?”

Sigrid took a while to answer. “I don’t know,” she said at last. It was no use lying. Bain could tell. “Maybe not. But I think he will be.”

Bain nodded, accepting this information as it came. “What can I do?”

Sigrid smiled weakly. Her brother was always the practical one, always searching for a solution. “I’ll tell you when I figure that much out for myself.”

Bain was silent for a long moment. “He wouldn’t want us to take care of him.” It’s spoken almost like a question, mused aloud with no expectation of a response. They both remember how it was before, the skipped meals, the laundry that never got done. Sigrid had seen the things that her father couldn’t, not with their mother’s lifeless face still plastered over his eyes. Sigrid had come to a decision, or perhaps a realization of something which was no choice at all. The chores were quietly finished, and life ground on—haltingly, and with all the mistakes that a child mimicking the actions of an adult would make. Bain had helped, as young as he was. It took Bard a long time to tear free of his grief, and when he realized what Sigrid had been doing (what he’d put her through, that bitter, locked-away piece of her mind fills in) he’d sworn it would never get that bad again.

It wasn’t that bad. But it was heading in the same direction.

All Sigrid said was, “We’ll do what we can.” 

When Sigrid slipped back into her own room a moment later, the moon had risen higher in the sky—light that had been wan and sickly now burned white-hot. The curtains were thrown back to let the moonlight in, and she stared out into the branches of the trees and up to the dark sky above them. Their leafless tops were gilt with moonlight, silvery cracks dividing earth from sky. There were no stars. The moon obliterated them all.

Sigrid settled herself slowly back into bed, feet seeking out the pockets of warmth still folded into her covers. She lay staring up at the ceiling. She did not sleep. Her brain was trapped on her pillow like a beetle twitching on a pin, unable to find relief.

She raised her fingers to the glass of the window, felt the cold breathing on her knuckles. And then, the movement as slow as a sleepwalker’s, her hand slid under her pillow and pulled out a notebook.

The moonlight was bright enough to read by. She flipped to the proper page, buried between journal entries and mindless drawings. On it were two lists. To the left, one word: _Da_ , underlined, with a line of bullet points marching down beneath it. Sigrid skimmed them with bleary eyes: here was every nervous tic or strange occurrence her father had exhibited in the past couple of months. She skimmed her notes, as she often did when sleep refused to come.

If there was a pattern, or even a single line she could draw through her father’s strange behavior, she couldn’t see it. First, her father had become more paranoid. He’d taken to going out late at night when he thought all the children were asleep, and the mornings after his face would always be haggard with more than lack of sleep. Sigrid had found a bunch of maps in his closet, marked up with notes that she could make no sense of. There were news clippings there too, of local disappearances, animal attacks, even a few murders. Once, he’d gotten a text and then left his phone on the counter—Sigrid scarcely felt a twinge of guilt when she picked it up to look, especially when she saw he had deleted it as soon as he’d read it. 

And of course, there were the rules: No going out alone after dark. Always lock the doors and windows. Never let a stranger into the house. Never even answer the door.

She tapped her pen on the paper. Of course, Bain was assuming that whatever was going on had to do with their mother. It was the only point of reference he had for their father to act like this; and it was, of course, the logical explanation. Ghosts had a way of sitting down where you left them, quiet and out of the way but always there. Sigrid knew that all too well herself. But she also knew, beyond a reasonable doubt, that there was something else going on—something she wouldn’t share with Bain. Whatever was happening with their father, Sigrid was sure of one thing: it all came down to a certain stranger who, three months ago, had slid into their lives like a dagger between the ribs.

Only then did she let her eyes wander to the second column, inspecting it coldly. The name at the top of was written in careful letters, underlined with a single slash of black: _Thranduil._

His presence was a factor Sigrid could not account for. She didn’t understand what he wanted from her father, what her father could possibly want from him. She’d asked, again and again, about who exactly Thranduil was. Bard had denied every label Sigrid had thrown at him, and never offered any up himself.

Two months ago, Thranduil had begun skulking around the house more often. Sometimes there would be a knock at the door, and her father would get this look in his eyes. Not fear—just an animal sort of wariness. But once when the knock had come she had opened the door before her father could get to it. Thranduil had stood on the stoop, clearly expecting Bard—his expression was quickly covered up with polite surprise. But not before she’d caught a glimpse, just a fraction of a second, of something in Thranduil’s eyes. It was like a sliver of darkness just beyond a door as it was slammed shut, but it sent something squirming in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t explain it. She knew evil when she saw it.

And then there were the bruises. Dark spots splotching his arms and neck, her father always cited the dangers of his job when Sigrid brought them up. The lies had rolled off his tongue, clearly greased with practice. Sigrid could scarcely look at him then, could hardly imagine what he was trying to defend. Later she’d asked him directly whether Thranduil was responsible, and he had denied it—there had been truth in his eyes, but how could Sigrid believe it when there was no reasonable alternative?

That was when she had made the list. Vague apprehensions she could ignore. But if her father was getting hurt, she was going to stop it.

She read over the list trailing down from Thranduil’s name on the page, frustration eating a pit inside of her. _Gang? Government agency? Blackmailing? Drug money?_ Nearly every entry on this list was followed by a question mark, and each theory seemed more ridiculous than the last. Reading them made Sigrid feel more and more the fool—no, it made her feel like a child, clueless and out of her element.

She knew, of course, that for all her theories and all her father’s denials, the nature of his relationship with Thranduil could be easily explained: that they were dating. Between that and the list marching down the page, Sigrid wasn’t sure which was more implausible, or frightening. The thought wormed into her brain and twisted her shoulders with discomfort. She couldn’t think of her father that way, couldn’t imagine how he could see Thranduil as anything close to a replacement for Sigrid’s mother. She pushed the thought aside, left with its bitter taste, and turned back to the page before her. There had to be something more to this. She could feel it.

Slowly, Sigrid raised her pen once more, and added one more item to the list: _Connection to Da’s sleepwalking?_ Perhaps it was trivial, but it was hardly the least outrageous accusation she could throw Thranduil’s way. She needed more information. But Thranduil was as elusive as a wild animal, and about as safe to try and corner.

She closed the book, and slipped it back into place under her pillow. She should sleep. God knew she needed it. But for now she only lay there, eyes still wet, watching as the light seemed to warp and shift like something alive every time she blinked. Just before she closed her eyes for the last time, the moonlight seemed like a gout of white flame spilling through the window onto her legs.

The darkness took her, and in her dreams she wandered a dark house that was hers, yet not her own.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, Sigrid came downstairs to the kitchen feeling like a dried-out rubber band. Bard was awake and waiting, and by the bags around his eyes it didn’t look like he had slept much better than she had. But he greeted her with a warm smile and pushed a mug of coffee across the counter. Sigrid attacked it with enough sugar and milk to make her father wince.

“You were sleepwalking again last night,” she commented. She didn’t always tell him when she’d found him walking the house at night. She didn’t want him to know how worried she was.

Her Da’s shoulders stiffened. She couldn’t see his face. “Was I?”

“Right up to the kitchen door. I thought you were going to wander right off into the woods.”

“I must have been dreaming about camping,” her Da said with a wry smile. The toaster spat out its more-than-singed bread, which Bard quickly buttered and pushed her way. Sigrid used to love spending the mornings with him. Now, a shadow hung over every motion, tainted by bad memories.

“It’s weird,” Sigrid said, taking a bite of bread and tasting the charred bitterness on her tongue. “You never used to sleepwalk. Did you as a kid?”

“A couple times.” He took a long sip of coffee. She could tell her Da was skirting the subject. It only made her want to push harder.

“I was doing some research,” she continued. “Turns out sleepwalking can be caused by stress. Maybe you should try and take it easy for a few days?”

“I feel fine,” Bard said with a shrug.

“Really? No offense Da, but you look a Victorian lady before she’d been brought her smelling salts.”

Bard crossed his arms over his chest with a raised eyebrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That I’m getting very tired of our English curriculum,” Sigrid muttered. “Seriously Da. You’re looking a little peaky, and a lot tired. Maybe if you got a little extra sleep—“

“I don’t feel tired. Or stressed,” Bard said. And sure enough, there was something about the way he moved, the spark in his eyes, that contradicted the heaviness around his eyelids. He seemed lit by an inner fever.

“Well, what do you think is making you go on these little nighttime excursions?” Sigrid asked. Her voice was careful.

For a moment, Bard was silent, and Sigrid almost began to hope. But then he shrugged his shoulders again, mouth twisting in a ‘what can you do?’ kind of smile. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe it’s something I ate.”

Sigrid tried to hide her disappointment. “Well you might want to schedule a doctor’s appointment. Just to be safe.”

“That’s a good idea,” Bard said. She knew he wouldn’t do it. As it always did in times like these, the weight of her inexperience had seemed to force her shoulders towards the ground, compacting her into the girl she’d been when she first realized that her father didn’t have a much better idea of how to take care of their family than she did.

“You were talking a little in your sleep, too,” she said quietly. “You mentioned someone waiting for you. Was it Thranduil?” The last part of her question tumbled out of her mouth before she could convince herself not to voice it.

The effect it had on her father was instant—his face darkened, his hands tightened on his coffee. “And why would it be?” he said, voice falsely light.

Sigrid shrugged. She didn’t meet her father’s eye. “He’s been around the house more often lately. I thought there was a connection.” She took a bite of toast to quell the anxiety roiling in her stomach. “What is it you two talk about all night, anyways? With all those maps and newspaper clippings?”

Even the nonchalant phrasing of her question couldn’t undercut the tension behind her words. Bard’s shoulders slumped in a parody of a shrug. “Not much. Just comparing notes on a mutual project.”

“What project?” Sigrid asked.

“A personal one. Nothing important—you’d find it boring, I bet.”

It took a lot of effort for her mouth not to twist into a hard, bitter line. She recognized when she’d get nothing else out of him. For whatever reason, her father saw fit to trust an unsavory stranger more than his own daughter.

She finished the rest of her toast, suddenly eager to be out of the kitchen. Bard had picked up the local paper and was scanning it avidly for something. She didn’t want to end on that note, no matter what. She reached out again. “I have rehearsal tonight.”

“Great. I’ll be there to pick you up,” he said without looking up. She could see him withdrawing, as he had been doing so often.

“I can just drive myself, you know,” she said, frustration rearing its head. Not so long ago, he had been set on pulling her from the play entirely without being able to give a single reason. She considered herself lucky she’d managed to get him to reconsider. It still grated, though, that her father had so few qualms about rearranging her life and allowing her no glimpse into his own.

That tone got her father’s attention. At once, there was tension in the air that hadn’t been there a moment ago. He lowered the newspaper and fixed her with a frown. “Out of the question,” he said sharply. “I don’t want you or your siblings out alone after dark. We all talked about this.”

“If by ‘talked about’ you mean ‘were ordered without explanation’,” Sigrid shot back. “I’ve driven at night plenty of times before. It would be more convenient for all of us.”

“Don’t worry. It’s no trouble.”

Sigrid ground her teeth. “Well. As long as you’re fine with it.” She walked off before her father could respond.

She’d always been told how mature she was, often by adults with pity in their eyes at the knowledge of what she’d been through. She felt a pang of guilt for not living up to that label now. But her life had become a series of nonsensical rules and situations that never received an explanation. She was tired of feeling controlled by something she didn’t understand, of watching Bard grow more distracted every day and never getting even a hint of an explanation. Her father’s secrets were carefully packed away—but not so carefully that they didn’t send him walking at night. Things had gotten better, but not in the way they should have. The fear had moved in to stay. They’d all simply gotten used to it.

 

* * *

 

Rehearsal went as usual. The hours skipped when they didn’t drag, but time marched on all the same. The windows outside turned grey with heavy clouds, then blue with night. A short while later they were as blank and black portholes staring out into a deep sea. Sigrid’s classmates all left, one by one, until only she remained.

The low-hanging roof of her high school’s front entrance jutted out in front of the glass doors like a crag of rock. Sigrid stared past the clear frames, out into the parking lot where a thin dusting of snow spiraled past streetlights the color of yellowed fingernails. For the first time, her father was late. Maybe that shouldn’t worry her—but there was something about the grainy darkness outside that Sigrid didn’t like at all.

She checked her phone—no messages. She’d texted him twice with no response. A list of all the horrific things that could have happened began marching through Sigrid’s head. The snow made the roads treacherous. Anything could have happened.

Anxiety swelled in her stomach, a swarm of tiny insects eating her away from the inside. It seemed she could hardly go a day without feeling them gnawing at her. She stood up abruptly, unable to keep still, and walked over to the glass doors separating her from the wind-tossed snowflakes outside. This close to the glass, she could feel the cold coming off of it, one unending, icy breath. The in-set doors let only a small window of the parking lot be seen—maybe her father was already here, waiting in the car just out of sight. Unlikely, but possible. She could step outside to check.

The rules leapt up in front of her like a physical barrier the second the idea crossed her mind: _don’t go out alone after dark_. Sigrid pushed the swell of fear away. She just needed a quick look. It would only be for a minute. In the alcove just in front of the door, there was a pool of darkness that gathered in the spaces between the streetlights and the hallway, as deep and foreboding as a dark river. She reached for the door all the same.

At the very same moment her hand touched the handle, the glow of a car’s headlights swam into view, dragging the hulking mass of her father’s truck behind it.

A faint mist hung around it in the cold air like steam from the flanks of an animal. The headlights flailed out against the snow and the darkness, and behind it the asphalt was painted red. Relief twisted Sigrid’s fingers tighter around the straps of her pack at the sight of it. Sigrid pulled open the door and hurried out into the gentle snow. The windshield wipers flicked like an insect’s antennae as she approached it, cold locked around her body in a vice-like grip. Behind the snow-powdered windows, there was no movement. Sigrid’s hand settled on the door handle and yanked it open.

She stood there for long enough for her joints to ache with the cold, holding the door and staring blankly at the person in the driver’s seat. Snow began to settle down on her shoulders, and the cold gnawed deeper into her bones with every second. Still she didn’t get in.

“You should probably get in the car. I told your father I’d get you back safe, and non-frostbitten.” The voice was cool, dry, and suggested its owner didn’t much care whether or not Sigrid sickened and died right there.

Sigrid stayed where she was. “Where is he?” Her voice misted in the air between them. It was her Da’s car. He should have been here.

In the darkness of the car, she saw Thranduil tilt his head back with a sigh. “Surely this is a conversation we can have without one of us catching hypothermia?”

She hesitated a moment longer. She didn’t trust Thranduil. In fact, she was sure that getting into a car with him, at night, alone, was akin to laying her head down in the jaws of a lion. But all of the question marks in her notebook back at home crowded behind her eyes, all the questions she’d never been able to ask. The smart thing would be to go back inside, call her father, wait.

She slid into the car and snapped the door shut behind her.

Thranduil nodded with approval, and his eyes shifted out through the windshield once again. “Wise choice.” He shifted gears and began to drive, back down the winding roads towards Sigrid’s house. It wasn’t so far. But the road was dark and narrow, and a lot could happen on those few short miles.

It struck Sigrid that Thranduil could take her anywhere. She clutched her backpack to her chest, watching for a wrong turn that would take them somewhere that wasn’t home. If he did, what could she do? She could open the door, try and roll as she hit the ground. But she would be injured, and slow, and Thranduil would be neither. Her hands tightened. Running was not an option. It was time to face this.

Though her nose had been reddened by the cold, Sigrid could smell the lingering trace of cigarette smoke in the car. As she watched, Thranduil drew another from his pocket and placed it between his lips, shooting her a look from the corner of his eye.

“Da wouldn’t want you to smoke in here,” Sigrid said automatically.

The lighter in Thranduil’s hand flared to life, turning the profile of his face into a wavering ribbon of cold. “He’ll forgive me.”

“And where exactly is he?”

“Busy.” At Sigrid’s incredulous expression, he rolled his eyes. “Your father trusts me enough to allow me on such an errand. Trust his judgment even if you don’t trust me.”

“You’re right about one thing,” Sigrid said. A thought occurred to her, malicious and insistent. “Is he hurt?”

“He’s fine,” Thranduil said. “You can demand an explanation when we get home.”

 _It’s not your home_ , Sigrid almost said.

Instead, she kept her tone level. “So you’re saying my Da asked you to go pick me up, and you agreed from the goodness of your heart.”

“Not at all. I offered to go.”

Sigrid stilled. “And why would you do that?”

“I wanted to talk to you.”

Thranduil’s voice contained the edge of a smile, sharp under the innocuous tone of his words. Sigrid felt a twinge of a different kind of fear, the kind that came from being in a car with a stranger whose motivations and desires she couldn’t begin to understand. They were driving fast, too fast for the snow and the night. Sigrid found herself holding tight to the seat with knuckles as white as the snow flashing by the headlights. She wouldn’t ask him to slow down. Her posture was stiff, and she found herself subconsciously shifting so she was sitting as far on the seat from Thranduil as possible.

“And what did you want to talk to me about?” Her throat was drier than it had been a moment ago. She told herself it was the smoke.

Thranduil turned to her with a gaze that poured into her eyes like molten steel, bright and liquid and painful. “Come now, Sigrid. There’s no need to play games.”

Sigrid crossed her arms over her chest. It helped her feel as if there was something else between her and Thranduil before she spoke. “Fine. Then stop trying to win.”

Thranduil laughed. “You’re very much like your father, you know. Oh, don’t look so dour. It’s a compliment.” Sigrid could tell she was being pandered to. Thranduil didn’t see her as an equal. She doubted he even saw her as a person.

“Bard tells me you’ve been getting curious lately,” Thranduil continued, smoke curling over the edges of his lips. “Asking a lot of questions.”

“I’m a curious person,” Sigrid said. “What questions did you mean in particular?”

Thranduil glanced at her again. There was something in his eyes that Sigrid did not like. A cruel kind of laughter. “You think you can worm some sort of information out of me, I see. Are there any more leading questions you’d like to get out of your system?”

Any words Sigrid might have spoken dried up on her tongue. Thranduil looked relaxed, both hands on the wheel with the cigarette between his fingers, but she recognized the quiet threat in his voice. At once, she remembered the bruises. And sitting just a few feet away from him, it was hard for her eyes not to wander to the hands that rested on the wheel. Hard not to imagine the damage they could do to her own flesh.

But Thranduil seemed to have no interest in her, beyond toying with words. That thought gave her the strength she needed to dig her nails into her palms and sit up a little straighter, to stare out the windshield as if Thranduil scarcely mattered to her at all.

“I don’t need to ask any more questions to know you and my Da are hiding something,” she said at last.

“Don’t you now.” Thranduil’s voice was quiet. “And would you like to share any theories as to what that ‘something’ might be?”

Sigrid fell silent. She had nothing to say.

Thranduil took another drag from his cigarette. “It’s only natural,” he continued. “You are young. Change is difficult to cope with. Having to share your father’s affection with a stranger must be a challenge.”

Sigrid felt a tremor move through her body that had nothing to do with fear. If she had been cold before, now her anger burned beneath the skin. She could hear the fire of it roaring in her ears at the triumphant sneer she could see Thranduil holding back. _He’s playing all right, and he thinks he’s already won._

Something cruel awoke in her. “It’s not so difficult,” she said evenly. Thranduil glanced over. Her mouth was a tight line. “I just remember that my father will always love his family more than he could ever care about you.” The words dragged up out of some sharp place deep inside her, designed to strike out at whatever Thranduil might hold dear. She couldn’t tell if they’d landed their mark, but the snide smile twisted itself off his lips abruptly.

In the steep-walled silence between them, Sigrid found herself scrutinizing Thranduil’s face, trying to find some trace of what her Da might see in him. It wasn’t an unattractive face—yet there was something unwholesome about it that bubbled to the surface like a nervous laugh. The more she watched him, the more his movements seemed wrong, as if the muscles beneath the skin weren’t right somehow. There was a sharp-edged violence lurking beneath the surface, just far enough to remain indistinct but near enough to rise when the occasion demanded.

She couldn’t explain it to herself. All she knew was that she had to get her father as far from this man as possible.

“I will find out, you know,” she said quietly.

Thranduil was silent for a long time. “No you won’t.” he said at last. There was nothing more to it than that.

For the rest of the ride Sigrid felt no more desire to break the silence. They pulled up into her driveway a few minutes later, crumpling the smooth coat of snow forming on the pavement. Thranduil killed the engine, but made no move to leave. Sigrid sat frozen, so close to safety yet feeling far from it. Thranduil wasn’t done yet.

“What I have to say is this,” Thranduil said. “I suggest you focus on your schoolwork, and forget about pestering your father out with tiresome questions about me.”

“Is that a threat?” Sigrid replied. She wished her voice was more level.

“You may take it however you choose.”

Sigrid laughed hollowly. “And what would my Da say about that?”

Thranduil was silent for a long moment. Sigrid had begun to believe he was ignoring her question when he turned to meet her gaze. The light from the porch cast hollows into his cheeks, casting his face in an unwholesome light. “There are worse things out there than me,” he said. “You ought to be thankful.”

Whatever Sigrid might have said to that, it hardly mattered. Thranduil opened the door and stepped out without another word, and Sigrid was left with no choice but to follow.

Sigrid hurried past him on the steps, loath to let him enter her house before her. Already her heart was beating faster, remembering that her father was still unaccounted for.

 “Da?” she called as she stepped inside. “Are you here?”

“Bathroom!” The response was harried. Sigrid made her way down the hallway, a gust of cold air at her back as Thranduil stepped inside after her. Her father was in the bathroom at the end of the hall, kneeling on the floor by the toilet—at his side was Tilda, looking two shades distinctly greener than usual. Her father rubbed small circles into her back as Tilda’s eyes drifted open.

“Hi,” she muttered blearily.

“She’s been throwing up for the past hour,” Bard said tiredly. “Apparently something’s going around—half her class was out sick today.” Her father looked at her more shrewdly. “Are you alright?”

After a moment, Sigrid nodded. “Fine. A little shaken, I guess. Your friend drives too fast.”

Bard bowed his head for a moment. He must have known what Sigrid was feeling, the ripples of betrayal that he would trust Thranduil enough to take his place. When he met her gaze again, his hand was squeezing Tilda’s shoulder in a firm grasp. His eyes grasped for Sigrid’s understanding. “I couldn’t leave her.”

She supposed it was something, at least, that her father felt badly for letting Thranduil get to her. Her lips smiled, but there was frost behind them. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

Bard blinked, then nodded. She could see the hurt in his eyes, the knowledge he wasn’t forgiven yet. “Still. I’m sorry.” Even as he spoke Tilda groaned, a small hand rising to cover her mouth. Bard grimaced in anticipation.

“Everything alright here?” Sigrid jumped at the sound of Thranduil’s voice from just behind her. He was peering around the corner with an expression that tried only marginally not to appear bored.

Bard glanced at him. It wasn’t a long look, nor a particularly meaningful one—perhaps just mildly irritated. Thranduil’s presence did not even faze him. “They could be better.” Her father’s voice was deadpan, but Sigrid could hear a hint of teasing in it—the same bantering tone he might use with her. That ripped through her stomach like a rusty nail, every word and glance hammering it in a little further. She could already see the shape this night would take—the family would eat, as Thranduil sat somewhere in the living room waiting for Bard to finish. Then the children would be sent upstairs so that he and Thranduil could sit at the table and speak in low, serious voices that Sigrid could never make out.

As he was not stealing something from them with every second he was there, Thranduil leaned against the door frame beside her, his eyes only on Bard. “Anything I can do?” he asked.

“Are you asking genuinely, or attempting to be polite?”

Thranduil was quiet for a moment, head tilted, seeming to consider the question. “Genuinely asking,” he decided eventually.

“Then you can help Sigrid make sure Bain doesn’t burn the kitchen down.” He only looked to Sigrid for approval after he had spoken. By then, even when he saw the lines her face had hardened into, it was too late to take it back.

“I’m not hungry.” The words were honed sharp and brittle, and by the time she had spoken she was already turning away. Her father called her name at her back, and she didn’t listen— she only caught Thranduil’s murmur, “give her time.” She didn’t pause on the steps, or try to check the door to her room as it slammed shut behind her. Her hands were shaking.

Maybe it was childish. For once, she didn’t care. She’d turned eighteen to little fanfare just a few weeks ago, and she had never felt less like an adult. Adults were supposed to be in control, to know what they were doing. Sigrid felt like someone had ripped the rug out from under her, and she had never stopped falling.

She lay down on her bed. Sounds floating up to her through the floorboards, voices she didn’t want to hear. She could make out tones, not words—and whatever they were saying, it all sounded so _normal._ As if there wasn’t a shadow leaning over their house, as if something didn’t walk these halls even when there was no one else but them—whatever Thranduil was, he was inside of them all now, like a virus. It seemed she was the only one who knew that she was sick.

Sigrid sat up as a surge of frustration seized her, her gaze travelling out the window and away from here. The moon was dimmer tonight, but it illuminated the tiles of the roof leading out from the sill like flakes of tarnished silver. The world looked so clean, so pure out there, washed out by the light of the moon and the chill of winter. So much better than this house, where the rooms always felt cold and yet airless all the same, filled with something hostile and unbreathable. Was this even her house anymore? Had Thranduil taken that too? 

She needed to be outside, anywhere but here. Normally she would work off this restless energy with a run down the familiar paths in the woods, but she’d been forbidden from that for months. Her winter jogging clothes were folded neatly in the bottom of the drawer, waiting to be used. The thought of her feet pounding on the cold pine needles, her breath misting in the moonlight, was almost too much to resist.

 ~~…~~ So why should she? If her father had forbidden it, well. She’d been obedient, even when her father’s rules went so far beyond reason or explanation. And for what? Where had her sense of familiar responsibility gotten her? Her home, her family, her sense of stability, all peeling back like old paint.

With a sudden wild anger that shot straight through her, she changed into her running clothes, tugged on a pair of sneakers, loosened the latch and pushed the window open.

The cold air breathed into her skin and set it crawling with excitement. It was an easy path from climbing onto the roof, inching over to the thick-branched tree leaning over the house, and scrambling the short distance to the porch railing below. She’d done it plenty of times in the daylight; now all the familiar motions came back to her. Her feet hit the ground with a soft thump, and she felt the wetness of dew not quite frozen on the grass under her hands. It was only a short dash to the edge of the forest, and she made it without hesitation.

She stopped when she was past the tree line, the dark trunks standing solemnly around her. Faced with the dark path winding at her feet, Sigrid was beginning to wonder whether this rebellion was worth a potential broken ankle. The cold air plucked at the hairs on her arms, and for a moment she wavered. The house behind her was warm and—safe. Her mind faltered over the word.

Only then did she look back, peering partway around a tree to peer at the soft, warm glow from the dining room windows. Her family was sitting down to eat without her, passing bowls, making conversation. It looked so normal, as if no one was missing. It took Sigrid a moment to realize why.

There were four people at the table. Thranduil had taken her place.

The sight knocked the breath out of her as effectively as a punch to the guts. If her anger and fear had eaten at her before, now she felt it scour her out from the inside until she felt nothing but hollowness. She watched as Bard said something to Bain, and her brother responded; there were no frowns on their faces, no suspicious glances at the figure sitting back in his chair at the table. Tilda was picking at the tiny portion on her plate, still a few shades greener than normal, and Bard would often reach over and tousle her hair, offer some question or comfort. Once his eyes turned upwards, towards Sigrid’s room; but he looked away quickly enough, and sent no one to call for her.

Thranduil’s plate was empty, his hands gripping his elbows across his chest. He watched his fellow diners dispassionately, his eyes frequently returning to Bard. Sigrid saw her father return those gazes, his expression unreadable. She remembered how it had been the first time the man had sat down to dinner with them, how obviously her father hadn’t wanted Thranduil there. That felt like a long time ago. 

With a sick twist in her stomach, Sigrid saw Bard glance towards him now, ask some simple question. Her eyes tracked Thranduil as his hand snaked out, selected a salt shaker nearby, and passed it over. She could have raised her hand, hiding Thranduil behind a finger, and without him the scene would have looked just as comfortable. It was maddening, the way that somehow Thranduil had carved himself a piece of their normality. By the time she’d realized something had changed, it was already too late. 

She turned away, her heart beating hard in her chest. No eyes watched her as she darted across the green towards the gap in the trees where she knew the winding trail began. A few miles away it ended at an overlook, where the path foundered in the weeds and bushes and finally came to a halt. She had never met another soul on the trail, night or day; as far as she could tell it was used by none but her.

The path wound out in front of her, lit by patches of moonlight that filtered through the bare trees. It was scarcely more than a different-textured smudge against the forest floor, leading deeper into the trees where their trunks became a jumble of moonlight and shadow, impossible to pierce.

She broke into a run, faster than was safe on a dark path at night, but she didn’t care. She remembered the way well—she used to run it after dark many times whenever the moon was bright enough. After a while she fell into that familiar rhythm, the pounding of her feet on the yielding ground, the push and pull of icy breathes in her lungs. Her throat began to ache with the cold, her eyes straining against the dark; but her heart sang in her chest and pushed her deeper into the woods. She would reach the end, look out over that overlook. She’d see this through to the end and then slip back inside, her family none the wiser.

The trees hurried past her eyes, paneled with blue moonlight and deeper shadows. It would be easy, she couldn’t help reflecting, for someone to hide in the shadows there. For them to step out only when Sigrid was right on top of them. She shook such thoughts off. There was no one else out here but her.

That thought was no comfort either.

She quickened her pace, disregarding the burn in her lungs and legs. It wasn’t so far to the overlook. Once she got there she would feel better. Yet even as she sped up, she was struck by the feeling that someone else was running down the path behind her, their footsteps almost perfectly in tune with hers—except that they were slightly faster.

Sigrid glanced over her shoulder, watching the world tilt and bounce with her step—the path behind her was dark, empty. The house was long gone. In fact, it looked darker at her back than it could have possibly been when she ran through. As if the moonlight was dissolving away at her heels.

She wrenched her gaze onto the path in front of her, and not a moment too soon—a tree root loomed in front of her like the illuminated back of a snake, and with a yelp she only just managed to stumble around it and avoid falling. She didn’t want to fall. If she fell something might catch her. Her ribcage seemed to tighten around her lungs with every ragged breath. She knew she should stop, get her breath and her bearings, but panic drove her forward without mercy.

The path turned up, brittle bushes turned to claws that scratched her cheeks as she relentlessly pushed past them. She stumbled, righted herself, pushed off from a tree—and then the forest opened up around her, and the sky was above her, and there was the boulder that marked the end of the path in her mind. She stumbled to a halt with a gasp, the breath rattling in her throat as she leaned on the cold stone to catch herself. Twisting around, she found she was in an island of moonlight, where the trees kept their bay at the edges of the clearing. The path straggled back under her feet and into the woods like a length of rope around her ankles, ready to yank her back. She stepped off of it, and relief flooded through her.

Circling the boulder, Sigrid came to where the land began to fall away, tumbling down a steep and rocky hill scourged of its trees. The treetops below were nearly level with her now, nothing but bony fingers that sifted the moonlight through them. She leaned back against the rock, feeling her heartbeat press into the cold stone behind her. As Sigrid watched, a bank of clouds scuttling across the night sky wound around the moon, and then overtook it. Her little island of moonlight dissolved away.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

A scream lodged itself in her chest and failed to escape her lips, closing around her heart instead like a fist. She twisted towards the source of the voice, mouth open in a soundless cry. The slope at her back sucked at the space between her shoulder blades, causing goose bumps to leap off her skin. There was nowhere to run to.

From between the trees, a tall figure stood watching her. Sigrid could make out little more than a pair of bright, gleaming eyes. Her legs shook with something that wasn’t fatigue.

 “Who are you?” Sigrid’s voice to match. She was too frightened to care. All the times she had imagined what she would do if she met someone in the woods alone, and she’d never once let herself believe it would actually happen.

The figure shifted their head, and a long spill of hair tumbled down their shoulder. Her shoulder, Sigrid realized with palatable, yet short-lasting relief. “Are you afraid?”

Sigrid opened her mouth soundlessly, struggling for words. “You crept up on me in the middle of the woods at night, of course I’m a little alarmed!”

The woman chuckled. At that instant the moon struggled free of the clouds once more, bathing the overlook in light. Sigrid found herself looking on a face that looked young, yet not so young as her—but it was also ageless, as smooth as a stone that had been swallowed by the ocean. There was something purely wolfish in that face: the gaunt hollows of her cheeks, the gleam in her eyes, the edge of teeth behind her lips. There was nothing friendly in that face; only annoyance, edged with a keen, gluttonous interest.

Something deep in Sigrid’s mind recognized that look immediately.

“You’re a friend of Thranduil’s, aren’t you?” She couldn’t have said how the question came to her mind, yet as soon as she said it she knew it was true. That same strange physiology, the unblinking eyes—it all came together.

“And you’re one of Bard’s little brood.” She flicked the words off her tongue like drops of venom.

Sigrid’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know who I am?”

“You said so yourself. I know Thranduil, and therefore I know your father.”

Sigrid hated the implication of those words, the way they twined her father and Thranduil together. “Did you follow me here?” she said.

“Luckily for you. It’s not safe to be out after dark.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard there’s all sorts of weirdos running around the woods at night.” Sigrid crossed her arms over her chest.

The woman’s face seemed to draw the shadows deeper into it. “I don’t have time to go chasing after strays. I suggest you make your way home. Now.”

Sigrid’s mouth opened, but the words curdled on her tongue. The hot-burning anger that had driven out of the house to begin with was returning, was demanding that Sigrid defend herself from being ordered around like a toddler. But something held her back, and suggested that antagonizing a stranger in the woods was far from wise. She stared up at this strange woman in front of her, wondering who she could possibly be, why she was here. Whatever the reason, it was enough for Sigrid to want to be elsewhere. Even if it chafed to feel like she was taking orders.

“I was just heading back anyways,” she muttered, more for her own benefit. She turned back towards the darkened path. It looked no less sinister with the woman at Sigrid’s back. Yet that was the way home, no matter how dark, and Sigrid had to take it. She set off at a brisk walk, too tired to risk the panicked run that had brought her here in the first place. But as she walked, she began to realize that the crunch of her footsteps wasn’t alone. And when she glanced around, she saw that the woman had fallen into step beside her.

“What are you doing?” Sigrid demanded, taking a few strafing steps to the side.

The woman stared at her. “Walking you home.”

“I’m not a child,” Sigrid snapped. “I can make it back myself.”

“Of course you can. What you can’t do is stop me from making sure of that myself.”

Sigrid stared at the woman in faint disbelief. “Did Thranduil put you up to this?”

The woman tilted her head. “Not particularly.”

Sigrid paused. The words, when they came, were heavy. “My father?”

“Now you’re getting somewhere.” The woman’s smile curved bright and sharp in the moonlight. So Bard was implicated in this, whatever _this_ was. No longer could Sigrid pretend that Thranduil was simply manipulating him, or blackmailing him, or twisting him to his purposes. Her father had his own part to play. She resisted the urge to squeeze her eyes shut, and found herself continuing down the path towards her home regardless of the presence at her side. The way the woman moved, the world seemed to snap into place around her. Even Sigrid felt the pull of her orbit. She had no idea where her father had found these people, or what they were doing in his life.

“Why?” the word fell dully from her lips. “Why is Da doing this?”

The woman shrugged. “For you and yours, I’d imagine. That’s how this usually goes.”

Sigrid met the woman’s eyes. There was something enthralling about those eyes, something that demanded attention, obedience. Sigrid looked away quickly, feeling as if she had suddenly jerked herself awake. A different kind of fear was creeping over her now, the stirring like seeds germinating in the soft tissue of her brain. She didn’t know what fruits they would bear. She felt as if she were standing in the middle of a highway, cars whipping past her on all sides. She was at the center of a rush of motion and sound, and there was nowhere she could go to escape it.

She almost asked whether her father was in danger. She realized it was a foolish question—of course he was. That was what all of this was about. And what could Sigrid do about it? Instead, she asks: “Am _I_ in danger?”

The woman eyed her dispassionately. “Do you mean in general, or in this exact moment?” The implication was obvious: both.

Sigrid looked down at her feet, listened to the hard dirt crackling under her footsteps. “What can I do?”

“You can let us handle this.”

They were coming to the end of the trees now—up ahead, the warm light of the porch light bent around the branches. The dining room table was empty.

“You shouldn’t worry about your father.” The woman walked with her up to the edge of the trees, then stopped. Sigrid stopped with her. “He can take care of himself.” The words, when spoken like that, gave Sigrid no comfort.

Sigrid turned to look at the woman once again, the warm porch light a striking difference from the cold remote touch of moonlight. It played across her face like torchlight on marble, like burning temples.

The woman’s eyes had already turned back to the forest. “Run along home now. And don’t stray out after dark.”

Heart beating faster, Sigrid turned and strode up to the house, skirting the light of the porch until she was close enough to the windows to avoid being seen by prying eyes. When she turned back to the woods, there was no one there.

As if she had been holding her breath from the minute she opened her window, she felt as if a fuzziness in her brain disappeared as she made her way around the outside of the house. Her mind was buzzing like an old lightbulb, questions springing to life and blinking out before she could even articulate them.

She crept up to the kitchen door and slipped inside. The warmth of the house rushed up to meet her, and it was only then that she realized how bitterly cold she had felt. The house was very quiet, except for the hum of the furnace. She took off her shoes and held them in her hands, rolling on the balls of her feet, avoiding all the spots on the floor that would groan in protest. She made out of the kitchen to the foot of the stairs just beyond—and stopped.

The sound of movement was coming from her father’s room.

Sigrid hesitated. The lights had been off when she was still outside; could he be sleepwalking again so soon? After a moment’s deliberation, she crept down the hall, closer to his door. From underneath, she saw the silvery glow of moonlight occasionally disturbed by motions behind, the creak of footsteps faint and dry. When she stopped outside, she shivered and curled her toes; from beneath the door, a cold breath of air was leaking. The window must have been open. Sleep-walking or no, he’d freeze to death if he spent the night like that.

She raised her hand to knock.

From the other side of the door, she heard a voice.

Her hand froze a half-inch from the surface of the door. She’d never heard him talking in his sleep before. She nearly checked herself, nearly knocked anyways. It didn’t matter. She should just wake him up anyways. But that clawing, twisting force inside of her that had been crying out for answers all this time rose up and closed over her head. She pressed her ear to the door.

“…do? There’s nothing to say.” Her Da’s voice was low, agitated.

“I beg to differ. I believe you should say whatever it takes to make her stop asking questions.”

A cold thrill shot down Sigrid’s body.  
“And how would I do that, exactly?” her father demanded. “I’m scarcely holding things together here. It’s a miracle I’ve managed to pretend everything is normal for this long. She’s always been intelligent. She was bound to notice.”

“So you’re suggesting we tell her everything,” Thranduil’s voice replied smoothly.

“No! Of course not. That must _never_ happen. None of the children can know. I won’t put them through that.”

“Then I suggest you get creative with your explanations. Tell her—” The voice broke off. A long pause followed.

Her father’s voice rose again. “Well? Aren’t you going to say something?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because your daughter is standing from right outside the door.”

Sigrid felt a cold squeeze of terror constrict around her heart. She could only take one stumbling step backwards before the door was wrenched open in her face, and she was face to face with her father. His eyes fixed on her as if they didn’t believe what they were seeing—there was anger there, anger Sigrid had hardly ever seen.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

A lump formed in Sigrid’s throat. At once it was like she was five years old again, standing in front of a broken window with a baseball bat in her hands. “I—I heard someone walking around, and talking, and I thought you were sleep walking—I was going to wake you up.”

By then, Bard had taken in Sigrid’s clothing—the running clothes, the shoes in her hands. In a panic, she realized the one thing she should have done was toss them away before the door opened. Now it was too late.

“Sigrid,” her father said slowly. “Don’t tell me you’ve been outside.”

Sigrid’s heart beat in her throat. She couldn’t even answer.

 Bard ran his hands down over his face with a soft groan. “Sigrid…” he started, then broke off. Instead he turned to Thranduil, who appeared in the doorway by her father, his face smooth and pitiless. “Did you know about this?”

“Yes,” Thranduil said simply. “I had it taken care of.” He turned his eyes to Sigrid. “You ought to mind your father.”

Something cold settled over Sigrid at the sound of that voice. Her eyes shifted from Bard to Thranduil, took in the cool gleam of amusement there. At once, she remembered she was not a child. Children weren’t supposed to shoulder the things she bore. The things that her father, and Thranduil, had put on her shoulders. 

“And you ought to think twice before talking about me in my own house.” Her voice was hard.

She saw her father’s eyes widen ever so slightly. Saw him glance towards Thranduil. That did it. That broke the dam. The frustration and fear which had shivered inside her like a wounded thing leapt up and roared, filled with rage bourn from desperation.

“Do you want me to pretend I didn’t hear?” she asked. “Do you want me to just ignore everything, to stop asking questions and focus on coping with the fallout? You’re not even on my side anymore!” She spoke to Bard, but her eyes shot to Thranduil.

Bard raised his hands. “Sigrid—”

“No!” She took a faltering step back, and then another. She flung her shoes onto the ground between them with a clatter. “Take them, then! Lock me in my room! Nail the windows shut! If I’m going to be a prisoner here you might as well commit to it. But don’t talk to me like I’m a kid, like I don’t know anything, when I’m the one who has to try and make sure you aren’t going off the deep end all over again!”

She may as well have slapped her father clean across the face. Shock and then pain chased their way across his face. Even worse was the blank numbness that settled across his face afterwards. There was more Sigrid had wanted to say, more grief and fury to lay at his doorstep, but it all disappeared. She couldn’t. She’d driven a pike through the both of them. She couldn’t even stay to look at the damage.

She turned and walked away, her pace slow and measured. Her heart seemed to slow with every footstep. She didn’t stop to listen if Thranduil left the house, didn’t wait to see if Bain’s door would open as she passed. She made it to her room and closed the door behind her, feeling the cool air eddying around her—the window had been left open a crack. Sigrid settled down on the bed, shoving her feet under the covers without bothering to close it.

Her emotions had gone silent, flat-lined, and there was nothing inside of her but a dull hum. There would be time later for the words she’d said to replay in her head, over and over—there’d be time for apologies, forgiveness, for her father to lie and her to lie back, so that things could keep going on like they used to. But things were different now. And she was done denying it, done dancing back and forth between suspicion and blind, childish trust.

She shifted positions, knowing sleep would not come for a while, and the tips of her fingers brushed the corner of her notebook beneath her pillow. Slowly, her hand closed around it and drew it out into the light. She flipped to the proper page, staring at the two names and their separate lists. With deliberate care, Sigrid ripped the page out, and crumbled it into her hands without feeling. A new, blank page appeared before her. She picked up her pen. This time there was only one list: _Thranduil, Da, and the woman in the woods._  

They were together now, all tied up in ink, inextricable. Whatever horrible things might go into that list would be shared by them all. Her father had made his choice. Through it, he’d chosen for her. She didn’t know what he’d gotten himself involved with or why, but she would find out. She’d do whatever it took to protect her family, even if it meant protecting her father from himself.

She picked up her pen and began to write.


	13. Chapter 13

Tauriel watched the small figure hurry back towards the house, frustration curling in her gut. The girl had been bold and foolish, and the scent of blood had pulsed deliciously beneath the raised hairs on the back of that slender neck. She had walked by the girl’s side, inspecting the questions in that young face. It had been tempting to answer them, to open her mouth and give the girl a lesson in why her father kept her in at night. Tauriel nearly had. Alone in the woods with prey too stupid not to stumble into her arms, what was to stop her?

That was, of course, the problem.

The door slammed shut on the girl’s heels. Delivered as promised. And Tauriel had played her part of the obedient sheep dog, herding the flock to safety as if she were not the wolf. It had been a long time since she’d looked in a human’s eyes with anything other than the intention of dragging them into the dark water waiting within her own. She had found the girl’s gaze to be sharp and wary, and as hard as the set of her mouth. Tauriel could have worked to soften those lines, loosened her limbs and filled her with laughter before twisting back the head and tearing into the flutter of the throat. Tauriel liked a messy kill, the stickiness of blood drying on her skin afterwards. She didn’t know how to relate to a human without driving them towards the certainty of that ending.

 She should have just done it. Taken a little taste, or maybe taken it all—it was her right, etched into the cold walls of every vein. Yet she had ignored the curl of hunger wrapping around her throat, and let the human girl go scurrying back to the light. Just as Thranduil had told her to.

Tauriel could feel his presence behind those walls, cloistered where she could not pass. The girl was in Thranduil’s jurisdiction now. Tonight was one of those nights, when he played house with his human. And Tauriel was left to skulk around in the cold night outside, like a dog. Thranduil had requested that she look after the girl— _requested_ , she emphasized, because it sounded much better than _ordered_. It was better to pretend to have a choice.

She stared at the blank, dark windows of the house. From inside, she heard raised voices—the daughter’s flight had been discovered. Trouble in paradise. Thranduil would be displeased. Tauriel might have allowed herself a self-satisfied smile, but she couldn’t find the heart for it. All she could muster was a smoldering resentment. She tried to assuage it by toying with a familiar fantasy of exactly how she would tear apart every living body behind those four walls. She thought it might be fitting to tie them all down and drain them one by one, from the youngest to the father. She’d take special care with the oldest daughter, so tempting in her defiance. The thought only served to tighten the coil of hunger in her belly, and remind her that such revenge was impossible.

Her eyes turned from the house to the forest. A prickle passed up her spine at the matted cloak of the trees, the thought of what withered forms they could hide. Once she’d taken a savage pleasure in the wilds, feeling the oily trace of humanity slide off her skin as she ran through the tree trunks. She’d shed her clothes and the last memories of civilization, sought out the hikers huddled in their puddles of firelight. She’d been the monster then, picking them off one by one, feeding without remorse or finesse. After the battle, she’d had to constantly remind herself that she was a predator. A difficult thing to do, when one was hunted and not allowed to hunt.

She’d eaten the ones that fought for life with their last wavering breath, and she’d devoured those that had clung to her even as she emptied their veins. That was power. But now they were reduced to spending nights far afield, dredging for the lost, the displaced, the unwanted, dirty shells with bitter, watery blood whose fear and despair tasted stale with frequent use. She spent more time hiding the bodies than enjoying the kill. Her life had been reduced to a series of brittle commandments: Kill only those whose absence will not be noted. When the hunters come, remain still until they pass by. Allow no detection. And make no kills where Thranduil’s favorite human would know about them.  

It was necessary, Thranduil had said. Smaug’s hunters eddied around them like ripples around a rock, drawing ever closer yet never quite retracing Azog’s path. They could not afford to let a mound of bodies draw the beasts right to them. The thought of another battle was enough to draw Tauriel up short, fighting down the cold flood of dread mingling with the familiar bloodlust. She could leave, of course. But there was nowhere to go, no guarantee of safety greater than what little they had carved out here. She was no longer the darkest thing to stalk these woods.

For that reason, she would agree to Thranduil’s rules. Yet she knew it was not solely concern of their enemies which had dulled her sire’s bloodlust.

She’d waited by the tree line earlier that night, eyes scanning the flickering lights of the house until it spat Thranduil out. He came striding across the lawn, a glint of car keys in his hand—but it was the man’s car he walked towards, ignoring his own.

Tauriel should have kept her silence, slipped away into the forest without a word. But as Thranduil had often told her, she’d never been good at being wise. So she had stepped forward into the light, her hands crossed over her chest, and addressed Thranduil bluntly. “You’re looking peaky.” The complexion of a vampire that hadn’t been feeding well, if Tauriel was one to judge—and she was. Clearly Thranduil’s new pet hadn’t been putting out enough.

Thranduil had stopped short. His head turned to regard her across the gulf of space between them, him backlit against the porch light, her lingering near the trees. “You should be patrolling the woods.”

“I’ve been patrolling,” she said, moving closer with a falsely jaunty step, “every night. For weeks _._ ” She inspected him coldly. “Where are _you_ going?”

“Nowhere that concerns you.”

“So an errand, then. Are you going to pick up some milk and bread on the way home?”

“Tauriel.” There was a warning in his voice. “Do not comment on what you don’t understand.”

“I think I understand well enough. You and the human have your little deal now, don’t you? What I don’t see is what you’re getting out of it.” She took another step. Closer and closer, further into the light. Thranduil did not respond. “There was a time when you would have simply taken what you wanted. When we would have savored the kill together. I’m _hungry_ , Thranduil. I want to hunt again.”

Thranduil’s head was turned down, his eyes veiled. All she could see was the tightness of his mouth. “We can't allow ourselves any petty indulgences now. Two vampires hunting in the same territory is sure to attract Smaug’s notice. Or have you forgotten the pains we took to ensure our location never reached him?”

“You expect me to forget so quickly?” Tauriel snapped, anger sparking. “I was there, just as your precious human was. I killed dozens more than he did.” _But not Azog_ , a traitorous voice in the back of her mind whispered. That kill had belonged as much to a human as it had to her sire.

Perhaps Thranduil was thinking the same. It was impossible for Tauriel to tell. All he did was shake his head. “There’s no time for squabbling, Tauriel. We are at war.”

Tauriel laughed without an ounce of humor. “Of course we are. But we both know that isn’t what this is really about.”

That caught his attention. He turned to regard her fully now, his eyes two bright points. The house was a silent witness, belching its sickly yellow light into the cool dark of the night. “Oh? Do enlighten me.”

She snorted, closing the final few paces between them. She was standing just before him now, his shadow leeching over her. “You really want me to say it? You won’t let us hunt because _he_ doesn’t want you to. When exactly did you start treating a human as your equal?” Her lips curled around the words with relish. “Face it, Thranduil. He has you domesticated.” 

“ _Enough._ ”

Her back hit the ground with enough force to crack the frozen earth beneath her. Tauriel’s mind was knocked out of axis, her eyes staring blankly at the stars, and the familiar panic began to close in around her, she had to get up, had to keep fighting—and then Thranduil was there, his hands in her coat pinning her down like two metal weights. He hadn’t shoved her against Bard’s car. He hadn’t wanted to dent it.

“If you cannot make yourself useful on patrol, you will serve your purpose here,” he snarled. “Watch the house. No one goes in or out without my knowledge. Do you understand?”

Tauriel’s teeth were set in a grimace, but something plaintive ran a claw down the inside of her skull. Her hands were shaking, the memory of the battle still settling into her blood. “It’s not fair,” she whispered. “You can’t choose him over me.”

Thranduil’s face did not soften—it merely stilled, the lines of cold fury smoothed away. After a moment, his hands uncurled from their place in her jacket. He straightened, then stepped back, leaving Tauriel on the ground.

“Don’t be a fool,” he said at last. “I haven’t.”

She’d let him drive away without another word. There was no use in pointing out the fact that it should have been no choice at all.

In life (and it felt so distant and intangible that it hardly merited comparison) her mother had given her a younger brother, an unwanted gift that quickly supplanted her. She’d borne it patiently, feeling her parent’s interest slip off of her like a sheet falling back to let in the cold. He had been the first one she killed. Otherwise her parents might not have mourned her, might have quietly forgotten her existence in the light of their favorite child’s life. She’d thought she had left such weaknesses behind in her mortal life—evidently not. What could a human offer that she couldn’t, besides warm blood and a heartbeat? Was she less to Thranduil than a meal? But of course, he wanted Bard for something very different.

 _He could turn Bard. Make him like you, more than you_. She chased the thought away. She refused to be jealous of one of Thranduil’s playthings. He’d had a few of them since he’d brought Tauriel into his world, and those had always ended the same way—cold, bloodless, and no longer an issue. But this time was different, as if the ground had shifted beneath Tauriel’s feet and she had only just now noticed that everything was skewed.

She ran a tongue over the edges of her teeth, feeling their sharp edges, counting the points with each motion. She almost wished she’d taken a taste of the girl’s blood(Sigrid, her name was Sigrid, but names were too large a concession for Tauriel to frequently make). Perhaps it would have helped her to understand. There was something about that family, running as deep as a current of water dragging down anyone who waded in. Thranduil struggled in it now. Tauriel was tempted to dip her feet in the shallows.

She turned away from the house, where Thranduil and his plaything were fighting or fucking or watching the Golden Girls—she didn’t really know what they did together these days, after the battle had pushed them together like two repelling magnets flipping over. As far as she was concerned, Thranduil should have eaten him alive a long time ago.

The hunger which had stirred and yawned at the smooth column of the girl’s neck would not be ignored now. The lives that hummed around her, the warm quivering bodies as sweet and ripe as the memory of peaches, were not hers to take. So she ran, away from those bright windows and the faint glowing mysteries within. She was not welcome there, and had no desire to be. The forest was her domain, thick and tangled and lush with darkness. She slid through it like a comb through tangled hair, tearing past branches and roots without heed. She was no animal born to creep through the woods like a tick in the grass. She was born from humanity and removed from it, nothing organic left inside her skin, and she would not try to belong to the nature which had rejected her.

Down the path, past the overlook where the human girl had stared out with those old, sad eyes. Thranduil’s presence faded the more distance she put between them. Her sense of him was like feeling the weight of someone in a bed beside her—when they were close, it was as clear as the pressure and warmth of another body just an arm’s reach away. Now, the further she ran, that sensation lifted, growing lighter and further away with every step. In its place was a void. And in the void, others stirred—humans. Probably. These days, one could never be sure. Her pace increased, and she told herself it was anticipation.

She burst through the barrier of Thranduil’s territory like the last of a familiar heaviness lifting from her shoulders. He had begun to sink into the area like rain into the earth; the trees seemed to whisper his name. He was more sharply aware of the goings on in his patch of the forest—but out here, he had no power. All that was stopping her from killing as she pleased was her word, a distant echo in the back of her mind given to Thranduil what felt like eons ago.

As always, she told herself that perhaps tonight she would disobey, pursue the choicer game, the young ones, the ones with families. The familiar taste of ash coated her tongue at the thought, the sourness of it lingering even weeks after she’d picked the last chunks of malformed fledglings out of her teeth. No matter how often she promised herself rebellion, the risk of drawing another battle down on them would always be enough to curb her appetite. She would obey. For another night at least.

A wide, joyless grin plastered over her jaws, she turned towards the distant hum of humanity and picked up the pace. The hunger swelled until it was a living thing beneath her skin, and she was merely the thin membrane containing it, skin pulled over the sharpness of bone.

She was almost at the first clump of houses when she felt it. Something flickered on the edge of her consciousness as her feet pounded across the pine needles and dirt. It was no more than the draw of a feather over her skin, but it was enough to draw her up short. Fear yanked at her like piano wire cutting into her throat, the taste of ash a sour memory on her tongue. There were worse things than Tauriel abroad since the battle with Azog, as loathe as she was to admit it—but this was no fledgling, no enemy. It was a different sort of sense, like walking into a room and forgetting what you had been looking for.

Her mind floundered on the surface of that vast, tumultuous hunger. At once, realization stopped her short in her tracks. She turned towards the distance intrusion, further afield from Thranduil’s territory. Forcing the hunger into a tight clump in her chest, she set off away from those warm, trembling lights and their promise of relief. She’d sate her appetites later. This new sensation held a different sort of promise.

She found him kneeling in a clearing, moonlight settling on his hair and shoulders like a glamour. Thranduil’s bloodline was always so prone to dramatics—she’d inherited it too, though luckily she had a sense of humor to combat it. Despite the restlessness seething in her veins, the figure before her was totally still. It looked as if he were meditating, or perhaps praying. As she stepped forward, she saw he held something—a grey-dark form hanging limply in his arms. It was a doe, lifeless. She curled a lip in distaste.

“You’ve come a long way just to sample the local wildlife,” she said, remaining in the shadows near the trees.

The figure’s familiar white-blonde head turned slowly to regard her. Tauriel often thought that Thranduil had turned him because of the close resemblance between them—the biological son he could never have. He was prone to such sentiments. The creature before her now, however, could scarcely have been more different.

His face might have been handsome, once—she had seen it, in the earlier years, when she was young and he was still ancient to her. Now it was gaunt, made grey by more than the cast of moonlight. His eyes and his hair were the brightest things about him, shining out of those wasted features like patches on a statue that time had not corroded. Yet for of all that, when he looked at Tauriel his face broke into a faint yet placid smile. She’d always found that smile infuriating for her inability to decipher it.

“Tauriel,” Legolas said in a melodic voice roughened by animal blood. “It has been too long.”

“And whose fault is that?” Tauriel said lightly. “You never drop us a line. No love lost for your family?

 The smile twisted with a hint of irony. “If memory serves, ‘family’ has no love lost for me.”

She laughed, its ring echoing back to her unpleasantly. “Perhaps not. But I always found you amusing. Despite your strange habits.” Her eyes returned to the deer. 

His hands were curled around the body with an almost gentle fondness. As pathetic as always. “I see the years haven’t tempered your disapproval.”

“Nor will they change our nature. No matter how you deny it.”

Legolas’s lips quirked. “Can’t we choose for ourselves how we act in spite of our instincts?”

Tauriel snorted. “Scarcely together for a minute and already we’re back to debating. Shall I skip ahead to the part where I call you a spineless worm who fucks your animals before you eat them?”

“Very well. Then I can go ahead and say my piece about how you’re incapable of pity or remorse, drifting through existence leaving nothing but misery and destruction in your wake.”

“Now that’s just a compliment,” Tauriel said with a grin.  The  banter was familiar, almost comforting for that. She’d spoken them to Legolas many times before, and she had no doubt she would continue to. All the same, it was never really a debate at all—he had made his choice, and she would never lower herself to permanent starvation, subsisting off watery animal blood for eternity. Whatever he saw in humans worth suffering that for, Tauriel would never understand.

Legolas smiled that same infuriating smile. “Perhaps one day you will discover something to change your mind.”

“A human worth changing for, you mean? You always say that.” She raised her eyebrows in amusement, leaning against the side of a tree. “They have nothing to offer us except blood and the sport to get it.”

“Those are his words in your mouth.”

Tauriel’s smile withered.

Once she had admired Thranduil for his ruthlessness. He understood humanity in a way Tauriel never could, and he used that knowledge to strip them apart, nerve by nerve. Only recently had she begun to see the same weakness in him, hanging between him and his human like the false tenderness with which Legolas cradled the deer. Honestly, she shouldn’t have been surprised when Thranduil had begun entangling himself with his new pet, like a master wrapped up in its dog’s leash. His bloodline always had too close a bond with what they fed from. _Your bloodline as well. You were born from him_. The thought was an uncomfortable one. She stared at the deer, searching its blank eyes for a trace of pity inside herself. Nothing. That was a relief. She would not be weak. She would not show mercy.

With a sigh, she stalked around the edge of the clearing to look at him head-on. He had travelled far. There was an exhaustion to his features that suggested it had not been a leisurely journey. “I suppose you didn’t come here to return to the old arguments. If you’ve come for Thranduil, I can show you where to find him.”

“I am not here to see him. I’ve stayed beyond the bounds of his territory for a reason.”

“Not eager for a reunion?" Thranduil and Legolas had fallen out not long after Legolas decided to go vegetarian. It had not been a peaceful parting. “If not to see him, then why are you here?”

Legolas raised his head slowly. There was a tired sort of wisdom in his face, one she’d never seen in his sire’s. Perhaps it was merely the constant sense of weariness that clung to his features, a result of the lack of blood. Yet Thranduil was going hungry enough these days, and she saw no such mellowing in his temperament. Quite the opposite—he had become more bitter and violent than ever. Though not so much to end the farce with the human and his family and do what they all knew had to be done.

“I come with a warning,” Legolas said gravely.

Tauriel’s lips curled. “I can’t imagine anything you could say that would be worse than what we’ve already faced.” Her mind flashed back to that night, to the flame and the bloodless death she’d bitten into, time and time again. Half-made fledglings with their empty eyes, clinging to their own humanity like months dancing to the warmth of a flame. She’d killed her own kind before—theirs was not a peaceful species. But this was different. This was war.

Legolas was watching her face carefully. She reigned in her expression. He wouldn’t see her fear. “Then you must know that Smaug’s forces are marshalling, and not so very far from you.”

“We suspected as much,” Tauriel replied tersely. “We are prepared.”

“Are you?” His eyes were sad. “You are still young, Tauriel. You have not faced Smaug before, but he has walked twice in my lifetime. If Thranduil has you convinced that you are prepared, then you have grown more accepting of his lies than I would have expected.”

“Perhaps he is simply better off now that he has me,” she snarled. “We will be ready. We have a plan.”

“Is that so?” Legolas said quietly. “And where do the surviving members of the Durin coven factor in to these ‘plans’ of yours?”

Tauriel froze. Legolas’s words paced through her mind again and again, their impact mounting by the second. She forced her hands to remain limp by her sides, her face smooth. “The Durins were wiped out. They paid the price for awakening Smaug.”

“Decimated, yes. Eliminated? Not so much.”

The silence stretched between them for a long moment. At last, Tauriel’s hands curled into fists. “Who?”

“Thror and Thrain perished, along with many of their people. Thorin and his nephews survived.”

Tauriel ran her tongue over her lips, a human habit lingering on. “And why are you telling me this?”

Now it was Legolas’s turn to bear a cold smile. At once, the resemblance to his sire became clear. “Are you suggesting this information means nothing to you?”

“I did not say that.” The name burned through her mind like the swipe of a red-hot brand, its syllables glowing in its wake: _Kili_. She wouldn’t speak it aloud, not to Legolas. Tauriel struggled to reign in the emotions surging in her breast, so tangled together she could not distinguish one. Relief? Anger? Joy? They blended and burned inside of her. “I merely wanted to know what would bring you so far from your own territory to deliver such a message.”

“A simple reason—they are coming to you. I suspect they are nearby at this very moment.”

“Why would they come here?”

“To finish what they started. Their history with Smaug runs too deep. They may have failed once, but they will try again, until they are destroyed or he is.”

She barked a harsh, humorless laugh to hide the anxiety twisting inside her. “Fools. They failed the first time, they will fail again.”

Legolas hesitated. Tauriel took a step closer, a prickle of excitement stirring in her gut. She was standing in the moonlight now, still a few paces away. “Unless something has changed.”

“Difficult to say,” Legolas said. “It seems Thorin has come across some new information, something which has given him the courage to attempt it again. No less the fool, I’m sure. But likely they will still fail.”

Tauriel was quiet. “Why are you telling me this?”

Legolas’s mouth twisted. “We may have our disagreements between us. But in the end, we are still…family, as you said.” He shook his head. “The Durins have always been reckless. Their actions may put you and Thranduil in danger. I suggest you pass on my message to him, and take your leave of this place.”

Tauriel laughed bitterly. “Thranduil will not leave. He has _attachments_ here.”

Legolas raised an eyebrow. “Would you care to clarify?”

She hesitated. Family Legolas might have been, but she worried he would take news of Thranduil’s newfound weakness a little too well. Still. He had walked the earth for much longer than Tauriel, as he had been so fond of reminding her. Perhaps he had seen this before, and knew how to remedy it. “He’s taken a fancy to one of his playthings—a human. We could have been long gone by now, but he believes we may remain here in hiding.”

Slowly, a smile dawned on Legolas’s face. “I had not known him to take such risks in the past.”

“It seems he shares more of your sentimentality than you thought.” She paused. A flicker of hope stirred, a glimpse at a possible solution. “Perhaps you would care to try and talk some sense into him.”

Legolas laughed. “I will leave that to you. We both know he was never one to listen to me. Though I am very curious to see what kind of human could have inspired such odd behavior.”

“He is nothing special,” Tauriel said with no lack of bitterness. “It’s Thranduil’s own fancy at work. He would rather draw out the kill over months, even years. However long it takes to consume someone in body, mind and soul, I suppose.” She ground her teeth in her jaw. “At least all I ask of my prey is their blood. There is less cruelty in that, I think.”

“Less risk to you, certainly.” At Tauriel’s sharp look, Legolas continued. “You know the connection that forms between a vampire and its prey. There is nothing more intimate than to feel a life end even as it pulses into you. But if the life does not end, and the prey lives on…” he shook his head. “The connection does not go away. In time, it will only grow stronger. And to be tied together with life and light is a dangerous thing for our kind.”

“You speak as if from experience.”

Legolas’s eyes drifted down to the twisted body of the deer. “I was not always as I was.”  

Tauriel bit her tongue. She remembered the outlines of those days, when Legolas had taught her the finer arts of killing that Thranduil had not illuminated. They were hazy in her memory, both from the distance of time and the vast gulf between that person and the one she knew today. He had already begun to feel remorse for his prey when Tauriel was created. His breaking point came not so long afterwards. She’d missed him when Thranduil had sent him away, as little as she agreed with him. Seeing him again always brought forth a strange mix of joy and resentment. “Where will you go now?” she asked. “If Smaug is coming after us, he would only be too happy to kill you as well.”

Legolas’s eyes drifted out to the forest. “My presence here would be of little help. Thranduil and I are comfortable in nurturing our differences.” He met her gaze again. “And what of you?”

Tauriel turned the question over in her mind. It seemed lately she’d had few enough choices to make on her own—they’d all been made for her. Thranduil had no interest in fighting, yet running also held too much risk for him. He would lie low, fading away to nothing before Smaug so much had a chance to get his teeth into him. Tauriel’s mouth twisted. She couldn’t stay here like this, skulking and hiding and racked with hunger. And not just hunger—as much as she might want to deny it, part of her was afraid. It was the waiting that did that to you, that stretched you tighter and tighter until there was nothing left but trembling. No more. She could wait no longer.

At last, she nodded. “If the Durins are alive, I believe I have some words for them.” And not all good words, certainly. But her conversations with them had ever balanced on the point of a stake.

Legolas nodded. “I see. And will you tell them to abandon their pointless quest?”

Tauriel tilted her head. “What do you think?”

“I think the years have scarcely tempered your bad ideas, Tauriel.” She could hear the barely-repressed sigh in his voice, so familiar even after so long.

“Then it seems we understand each other. I don’t suppose your lack of bloodlust applies to your own kind as well as your precious humans?”

“Is that an invitation?”

“It is if you accept,” Tauriel said. “If the Durins are planning an attack on Smaug, they can use all the help they can get.”

“I won’t get involved in this,” Legolas warned.

“You always said that,” Tauriel said with a grin. “Come on, Legolas. I know there’s still some of your old self left in you. Isn’t it about time we got into some real trouble again?”

“I believe ‘trouble’ always ended up being more fun for you than it was for me,” Legolas replied darkly.

Tauriel laughed, a dark-tinged and wild sound. “But you did have fun. Admit it.”

Legolas’s mouth twisted ruefully. “Tomorrow night, this very clearing,” he said at last. “If I am not here, do not expect me.”

“I will see you then,” Tauriel shot back. She turned back to the trees, ready to head for what had become her home.

“Tauriel.” Her name stopped her short. When she looked over her shoulder, Legolas’s face was pained. “What of Thranduil?”

Tauriel’s jaw clenched as if she were biting through bone. She knew well what Thranduil would say. Hide. Stay safe. Don’t take any risks, don’t call any attention that might disrupt his little games. He was a shadow of his former self, and Tauriel was more than willing to blame a certain human. Well, Bard wasn’t here right now. He wouldn’t ruin this.

“He will only know when he needs to,” she said at last. She held Legolas’s gaze—he knew the significance of this. Tauriel had sided with Thranduil time and time again, had stood by him in doubt and had never been disappointed. That was before she had seen how one human could slip beneath his skin and rot him from the inside. After over two centuries, this was the first time she had seen him truly weak.

She came to a decision. She could no longer help Thranduil by obeying him. To save him, she had to liberate him.

“Tomorrow,” she said to Legolas one last time. “I suggest you feed well.”

She was gone before he could respond. In an instant she was within the trees, feet flying beneath her, leaping over logs and ducking under branches, her body singing with an energy she’d long been deprived. Yes, something was changing. No longer would she be cast into the shadows, starving for scraps. No longer would humans make the rules. No longer would she wait, squinting towards the shape her death would take. Now she was turned towards a new course, and a familiar face with a well-worn name, its edges steeped in blood.  

She turned back towards the flickering lights of humanity. Tonight she’d find a runaway. Young, with a hard mouth and caution in her eyes. The thought made hunger open like a dozen gaping mouths lining her throat, dry and gasping. Tonight she would show neither fear nor tenderness. She’d find somewhere private, somewhere she could take her time—and she’d think of Sigrid as she did, and imagine Thranduil watching her bleed one of his precious humans dry.


	14. Chapter 14

_Two months ago._

 

Bard’s children returned home the day after Azog nearly choked the life from Bard’s body. The first day was bizarre in how normal it was. Tilda and Bain watched Sunday cartoons, while Sigrid worked on her homework in the background. Bard made pancakes for dinner. It was as if nothing had happened, as if the world had tipped and deposited Bard in a life that was no longer his own. He told himself the battle was over—they had won. But that wasn’t quite right, not by Bard’s reckoning. A victory for him would mean he would never have to see any of Thranduil’s kind again, that he could return to a normal life. And now… well. He didn’t know what would happen.

It was the day after that when the police knocked on Bard’s door.

The officers looked out of place in Bard’s living room, sitting on the couch across from him with mugs of coffee held stiffly in their hands. They had scarcely drank any. Their pressed uniforms stood out against the couch upholstery, which had been battered, scratched, and spilled on until there was a better chance of identifying the various stains rather than what its original color had been. Bard watched their eyes wander over the carefully taped-down wallpaper and scuffed carpet, wondered whether they were remembering all the times they had been in this house before, when he had called again and again in the month before he understood that Thranduil was planning to toy with his food. Bard remembered all too well.

“Look, Bard,” Irene said, shifting in her seat with a creak of old upholstery. “You have to admit, this is all a bit suspicious.”

Bard resisted the urge to stare down at the coffee growing cold in his own mug. If they could see the bruises that mottled his neck, undoubtedly their suspicions would triple. The turtleneck currently hiding those blotches from view settled on Bard’s neck like a light stranglehold. “Yeah. I’ll admit that.”

“Feel like admitting to anything else, while you’re at it?” Braga said, a permanently nasty tone in his voice. Irene shot him a look. He deflated ever so slightly.

“Why don’t you just tell us again your version of what happened at Dale’s last night?” Irene said as she turned her gaze back to Bard. Her voice may have been gentler, but her eyes were unyielding.

Bard sighed through his teeth. “I’ve already told you what happened.”

“A man is dead. They found his body thirty feet up a tree, ripped to shreds. I’m sure you know that.”

Braga’s voice left a plane of flat, heavy silence in its wake. Bard met his eyes without flinching, hoping the children weren’t listening to this, knowing they probably were. “And what do you think did it?”

“Right now, we’re calling it an animal attack—maybe a rabid mountain lion,” Irene replied. “Unless we come up with some other lead.”

“And how exactly do I fit into all of this?” Bard demanded. “Or are you interrogating everyone who was at the bar that night?”

“We are _interviewing_ all possible witnesses, yes,” Irene said. “Your story just has some interesting… divergences. Based on what we’ve heard.”

“Are you saying I’m somehow involved in this?”

Braga raised his eyebrows. “Are you?”

Bard looked away, knowing how guilty the gesture would seem but unable to stop himself. They could never guess how responsible for those events he truly was. “I was inside the bar the whole time it happened. There was nothing I could do.”

“Then why don’t you explain again why you were telling everyone not to go outside?” Irene suggested. “Did you know something was going to happen?”

Bard took a steadying breath. Whatever he said next, it would have to be convincing. “I didn’t know anything for sure. I just got this feeling. If you were there, you would have felt it too. Like something awful was about to happen.”

“And did anyone else get this ‘feeling’?” Irene pressed.

“I don’t know. You’d have to ask them.”

“What about your friends?” At Bard’s blank expression, Braga leaned forward. “You weren’t alone at the bar that night. Who were you drinking with?”

Bard’s hand tightened on his mug. “Like you said: friends.” Bard hoped he could keep the bitterness of that statement out of his voice.

“Can you give me their names?”

“Am I being accused of something, Officers?” Bard made no effort to keep his voice smooth. “Because if I’m going to be interrogated, I’d prefer it not to happen in the middle of my damn living room.”

The officers exchanged a look. “Try to see this from our perspective,” Irene said. “Not so long ago we were over at this house more than once a week, because you said someone was stalking you. And if I’m not mistaken, the description you gave us was awfully similar to how witnesses described one of your friends last night.” She leaned forward. “Just a bit odd, wouldn’t you say?”

“And what about your little escape stunt?” Braga broke in before Bard could string together a response to Irene’s accusations. “You tell everyone to stay inside, and then you and your cronies promptly flee the scene.”

“We thought we heard someone calling for help outside,” Bard said mechanically. The lie came pre-conceived. “Something chased us to the car as soon as we were outside. We thought maybe if we drove away, it would follow us away from people.”

Braga snorted. Bard didn’t need to ask the man’s opinion to know he thought Bard was a coward. The label still stung. Irene, on the other hand, seemed to merely think him unstable. No matter what either of them thought, Bard told himself he didn’t care—as long as they weren’t reaching for the handcuffs on their belt, or worse: threatening to take his children away. Bard doubted he could survive that much.

After what felt like an eternity of asking the same questions in different ways, the officers finally rose from their chairs and made their way to the door. Braga left with only a customary nod, his jaw tight and his eyes distrustful. Irene paused in the doorway a moment longer, turning to face Bard with an expression that was almost sympathetic.

“Listen, Bard… You’ve always looked after folks in this town. No one wants to make you feel like the bad guy. But if you could give me something, anything to take back to The Chief that would get him and Alfrid off our backs, we could put this all to bed.”

Bard shook his head. “There’s nothing I can tell you, Irene. I’m sorry.”

After a while, Irene nodded. Something in her face closed, leaving nothing but the cold professional mask in its wake. “Fine. Well if there’s anything you want to tell me or my partner, you know where to find us.”

Bard went to the window as soon as he heard the car door slam shut. The houses circled the black pool of the asphalt with blank, greyed-out windows, like eyes all staring at something that wasn’t there. Bard watched until he saw the police car circle the cul-de-sac and hurry off down the road, a tumble of dead leaves churning in its wake. His children came tramping down the stairs a minute later, having waited just long enough to pretend they hadn’t been eavesdropping.

“What did they want, Da?” Bain could scarcely disguise his eagerness, and his younger sister seemed equally intrigued. Sigrid, on the other hand, looked worried.

Bard settled back down into the chair with a sigh, reaching for his coffee and finding it cold and bitter. “How much did you hear?”

Bain’s face immediately snapped into doe-eyed innocence. Bard had no idea how he’d come to be such a terrible liar. “Oh, not that much.”

“Was someone hurt?” Tilda’s question came an octave too high.

Bard resisted the urge to fidget. “I’d rather you all hear this from me than someone at school. They found a body in the woods near Dale’s. They think it was an animal attack.”

Tilda’s face went slightly paler, but Bain looked elated. “A _human_ body? I don’t believe it!” he cried. “The most interesting thing that’s ever happened in this town, and we just had to be gone for it!”

“Bain,” Bard said sharply. “This isn’t a joke. Someone died.”

“Sorry, Da.” Bain looked down for a moment. His chagrin didn’t last long. “But what about the animal? Was it a bear? Did they catch it?”

“No, not yet. I’m sure there will be a search soon.” Bard regarded his children wearily. “What’s important is that you all stay safe in the meantime. Stay clear of the trees, even in the daytime. Keep the windows shut. And absolutely no going out after dark.”

Bain groaned, the novelty of the situation already fading. Tilda, on the other hand, hurried to Bard’s side and leaned in for a hug. “Are we safe, Da?”

 _No. I don’t know. Maybe we’ll never be safe again_. Bard squeezed his eyes shut, as if he could close out the words in his head. “Of course we are.”

“But the police were here. Does that mean they think it might be mur—”

The look Bard shot him over Tilda’s head cut Bain off in mid-sentence. His youngest pulled back to look at her brother over her shoulder. “It might be what? What might it be?”

“Nothing,” Bain said quickly. “I meant it might be… mundane. Having to go around talking to people about a boring old animal attack all day.”

“That isn’t what you were going to say!” Tilda cried, darting forward as Bain tried to retreat. “What were you going to say! Tell me!” Bard watched them retreat out of the room, Bain muttering excuses as Tilda yanked on his arm. He and Sigrid were alone together now. Bard hadn’t missed the fact that she hadn’t spoken a word.

“Don’t worry,” she said at last. “Bain’s an idiot, but he won’t scare Tilda.”

Bard shrugged. He could hardly keep the exhaustion from clouding his face. “It’s normal to be curious, I guess. I know I can count on you to keep them safe.”

“I’ll try.” Sigrid’s lips tightened. Her eyes darted to the couch where moments ago the two officers had sat. “Da, are you… are you in any kind of trouble?”

Bard shook his head, perhaps too quickly. “No. The police are just being thorough.”

“What _were_ you doing at the bar that night?” Bard knew she had heard Braga’s questions about his ‘friends’. Sigrid wasn’t stupid. She would know that one of them was Thranduil.

“You remember how I said I needed to sort some stuff out this weekend?” Sigrid nodded. “Well. That’s what I was doing there. Just… talking.”

Sigrid’s arms curled around each other over her chest, held to her as tightly as an iron bar. “I also remember that you said after one more weekend everything would be fine.”

The memory of those words left the taste of ash in his mouth. He hadn’t even believed them himself at the time—but god, he’d wanted to. And now, could he really tell Sigrid things would be alright, when there were monsters stalking the forests intent on ripping them all apart? The only thing that had improved in the past two days was that Thranduil was now the least of his problems.

He forced himself to swallow, hoist a smile onto his face. “I know it might not seem like it. But things will start to get better.” Maybe that would become yet one more lie to blow up in his face. He had to hope that somehow, it would be true. He would make it true.

At last, Sigrid nodded. Her young face looked much older now, holding back the weight of more cares than any teenager should have to weather. Bard quickly found his feet and beckoned her forward. He saw the weariness on her face start to slip away as she stepped forward for a hug. Bard held her tightly for a moment, wondering when she got so be so grown up. He wished she didn’t have to be, wished he could shrink her back into the kid whose laughter used to go on and on as if there was nothing waiting at the other end.

But when Sigrid pulled away from him again, she was still frowning. “Why are you wearing that?” She gestured to Bard’s shirt, with its high, uncomfortable collar.

Bard glanced down at it. The question seemed to come out of nowhere. “To avoid being naked?”

“But you hate turtlenecks. You’ve _always_ hated them.”

“It’s cold out.”

“I’ve never seen you wear that one before.”

“I dug it out of the bottom of the drawer.” Bard waited for Sigrid’s next question, and found only a void of cold silence instead. Any comfort he might have given Sigrid before was gone.

“I’m not trying to arrest you, Da,” Sigrid said at last. “You don’t have to lie to me like you lied to them.” Without another word, she turned and left. The police’s interrogations he could handle. His own children’s suspicions gnawed into his gut. And if Sigrid had seen the mottled collection of bruises his shirt’s collar hid, her anger would have turned to fear. He wouldn’t do that to her, or any of his children. They would never have to bear this burden.

Unbidden, Bard’s eyes turned out the window. Golden light shifted through the red and brown leaves of the trees. Night would be falling soon. Bard was expecting company.

 

* * *

 

Bard counted the steps from the couch to the television, the television to the doorway, then back again. There was more solace in those numbers than the ones blinking placidly on the clock. Outside, the windows were dark, and had been for some time. With every step he took, Bard ran through the list in his head like fumbling prayer beads. His children: in bed. The house: locked up. Weaponry: two stakes freshly whittled from deadwood this afternoon. Thranduil:

An empty space in his mind where a clear-cut answer should have been. It was nearly midnight. No knock had sounded on the door, no message had appeared in Bard’s phone. The woods were dark, with no flicker of pale blonde hair moving between the trees.

Bard tried to read, watch television, avoid flicking the curtains away from the windows to peer at the tree line. He hadn’t seen Thranduil since depositing him in the storage unit two nights ago. Last night Bard had expected him to appear as soon as the sun went down. Eventually he convinced himself that Thranduil must be busy, that he would come when he can. That morning Bard had woken up on the couch to the first fingers of dawn probing the blinds. Thranduil had never appeared.

And now another night was half-gone, and no figure had appeared at the edge of the trees.  

Once Bard would have welcomed the reprieve. Now, it terrified him. He was drawn as taut as a garrote, every new question drawing the stranglehold tighter. Had something happened? Some new threat that prevented Thranduil or Tauriel from coming to him? What if Tauriel hadn’t hunted down all the fledglings? What if some had survived, or even only one, crawling back bleeding and babbling to the one piece of warmth pressed into its fractured memory, waiting behind that very tree—or perhaps the next.

With the fear, anger came hand in hand. He began to suspect that Thranduil was avoiding him—then he was sure of it. Another game. He had been a fool to think that now they were on more equal footing. If he wanted anything from Thranduil he was going to have to take it. Yet all the same, Bard began to think about Thranduil’s limp limbs, how he hadn’t so much as stirred when Bard deposited him on the floor of the storage unit the night before. Bard had assumed all he needed was time. He hadn’t even bothered to check Thranduil’s wounds. For all Bard knew, they could have been fatal.

It was almost three in the morning when Bard grabbed his coat and keys. Just crossing the threshold after dark was enough to make his skin stand up off his flesh with goosebumps. Just twenty four hours ago Azog had nearly broken Bard’s neck on this very road. It seemed so ridiculous he could scarcely believe it had happened—except for the shaking in his hands. Bard’s knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. He drove on.

He slowed down on the road a short distance from the harsh white light of the storage units. His heart beat a little faster when his wheels crunched over the broken glass still strewn across the road from two nights ago. He’d towed the car away himself, shortly after depositing Thranduil’s body in the storage container and stumbling back to the main road. No reports had been made about a wrecked vehicle on the back roads that night; the police were too busy investigating the “animal attack”. The fallen tree across the road had been torn into chunks and tossed into the woods, presumably by Tauriel. That was the only sign Bard had that she was still alive.

Bard followed the roads to the rows of storage containers. The bright lights overhead made him feel like an ant on a white tablecloth. The closed doors observed him eyelessly as he made his way to the one he was looking for. He didn’t know if Thranduil would be here. It was the only place Bard knew to look for him now.

He stopped in front of the correct unit. The key he’d fished out of Thranduil’s coat pockets two nights ago was clammy in his hands. There was only so long he could wait. He bent down, fumbled open the lock, and wrenched the sliding door up.

The artificial light from outside crept halfway into the unit before it hit a wall of shadow. In it Bard could see boxes, a chair, some wood shavings on the floor. A black splatter smeared the floor where Bard had seen Thranduil last. Near the back it was so dark Bard couldn’t see so much as the intimations of the walls—he could have been staring into the mouth of a massive cave. Thranduil’s body had lain near the middle. Bard could picture how it had looked down to the exact detail; the half-lidded tilt of his eyelids, the curl of his fingers, the splatter of blood still drying on his face. Bard had never seen him look more harmless. It was a dangerous memory to have.

He lingered in the open doorway. “Thranduil?” His voice was hesitant, quiet. Nothing stirred from the shadows within. On impulse, he glanced over his shoulder. For a moment he was convinced that one of the other doors was sliding open, a gaping mouth stretching wide—he thought he caught a glimpse of pale little fingers pulling it up from the inside. He blinked, heart pounding. The storage unit was empty. All the doors were closed.

A rustle from the darkness in front of him struck a new chord of fear. He started, ready to slam the door down—but nothing came scuttling out of the shadows. With unsteady hands Bard pulled a small flashlight out of his pocket and shined it beyond the wall of darkness. At first, there was nothing. But then he caught the faint gleam of the light off white-blonde hair.

“Thranduil?” Now his voice was more urgent. If the other man was hurt, he would be a dangerous liability, if not dangerous himself. There was no movement that Bard could see—but there, a slight shifting. And suddenly he was fixed with a single pale blue eye that pierced him like something physical. Out of the shadow a croaking voice rose in little more than a whisper:

“Shut the door.”

For a long moment Bard hesitated. The light coming in from outside was like a torch to drive back a pack of ravening wolves. But when the voice made no further entreaty, he realized his only other choice was to turn around and leave or do as Thranduil asked. Bard stepped inside. He gave the door a tug, and let it slowly slide down behind him. The light was squeezed to a single shrinking band, then a sliver, then a thread. As the door clattered to the ground, there was nothing left but the faint yellowed light of Bard’s flashlight, scarcely illuminating a foot-wide radius. He settled it on Thranduil, who turned his face from that dim illumination—or as if he were flinching from Bard’s gaze.

For a moment, Bard wavered. “Are you…” Okay? Intact? In control? Bard wasn’t sure what he was trying to ask. As far as he could tell, Thranduil hadn’t left this room since Bard had last deposited him here. What would keep him here? Bard thought back, trying to catalog the various injuries Thranduil had sustained two nights ago. Enough to kill a human being; but there was so little Bard understood about what made Thranduil bleed.  

A murmur disturbed the strained silence between them. Bard realized Thranduil was speaking. He edged forward, his feet scraping the concrete floor, the light wavering in his hand. He couldn’t see Thranduil’s face, or understand his words.

“What are you saying?” Bard lowered his voice without meaning to. He was only a scarce few feet away. “I can’t hear you.”

Thranduil’s held lolled backward, and Bard felt a cold hand clench his heart.

Thranduil’s eyes were sunken, the shadows clinging so tightly they turned his face into a living skull. Even his skin seems translucent—Bard couldn’t tell if it was his imagination that he could see the outline of Thranduil’s teeth even through his cheeks. It took him a moment to realize what he was looking it, and when he did his stomach seemed to lurch into his ribcage. Half of Thranduil’s face was twisted, scarred, the flesh running in rivulets as if it had been melted like candle wax or overgrown with roots.

“My God,” Bard whispered. Part of him felt he should look away. The other part couldn’t stop staring. “What happened to your face?”

Thranduil’s head wavered on his neck, as if he wasn’t strong enough to support it. “I’ve lost… a lot of blood,” he said at last. Talking seemed to be an effort. “I haven’t fed in days.”

“But those scars…” Bard leaned forward in spite of himself. He couldn’t imagine what could create such a wound, nor the fortitude it would take to survive it. The pain must have been unimaginable. “Did Azog do that to you?”

The response was long in coming. “No. Old wounds. Do not look.”

Bard hesitated. “Are you dying?”

At that, the half of Thranduil’s thin lips formed an even thinner smile. “Don’t sound… so hopeful,” he managed. “I will survive. Does that disappoint you?”

Bard didn’t answer. He didn’t know what he would say. If he wanted Thranduil dead—and without a doubt part of him did—he could have plunged a stake into his heart when he lay unconscious at Bard’s feet two nights before. Likely he could do so now. Bard tried to imagine stepping forward, yanking Thranduil straight and bringing the wooden stake down into his heart. He imagined those cloudy eyes widening in shock, or perhaps simply accepting their fate and sliding shut. And then Bard would be alone. The darkness pressed in on him with the weight of a mountain. Alone, but not free. “What should I do?”

Thranduil was quiet for a long moment, long enough that Bard wondered if he was awake. But he lifted his head with effort. “You would help me?”

Bard only shrugged. Eventually, Thranduil seemed to accept that as the only answer he would receive. “Find Tauriel,” he said at last. “Tell her to come to me.”

“How can she help?” Bard asked.

Thranduil’s twisted smile was wan. It made the knotted scars on the side of his face seem to writhe. “Do you really want to know?”

Bard’s throat bobbed. Bard knew there was only one thing Thranduil needed, and he knew what Tauriel would do to get it. He couldn’t let that happen.

“I can try and help,” Bard said. “The butcher—they might have something. I’ll bring it to you tomorrow night.”

If Thranduil’s face wrinkled in disgust at the suggestion, Bard couldn’t catch it. He only heard a faint sigh as Thranduil let his head rest against the wall behind him again. Bard waited a moment more, staring down at Thranduil’s crumpled form and wondering what he should be feeling. It was hard to make the connection between the monster that had terrorized him those past months and the pathetic creature in front of him now. He felt no pity, but he felt no satisfaction either. Maybe he should—maybe not savoring Thranduil’s pain and misfortune was tacitly rejecting them. But Bard found it impossible to feel anything more than a warped sense of relief.   

He turned to leave. As he moved, a hand rose from the darkness and settled on Bard’s wrist. Not grabbing, not even holding—just resting there. The skin looked warped under the light of the flashlight. Bard realized the scars must cover more of Thranduil’s body than he’d thought.

“Bard.” His name came raspy from a wasted throat. “Thank you.”

Bard did not respond. He brushed away the touch, his skin crawling with something that he couldn’t place as revulsion. When he opened the door the light was so sudden it nearly blinded him, but he staggered out into it nonetheless.  

 

* * *

 

He returned the next night. He’d driven a town over and mumbled some excuses about making sausages to the local butcher, and he’d got himself a quart of pig’s blood. It sloshed in its container as Bard made his way back to the storage unit, oily and unsavory. It would have to do.

Just as Bard was about to round the corner and make his way to Thranduil’s enclosure, he heard voices that stopped his feet like blocks of cement. They were coming from a space just outside of Thranduil’s lair. Bard moved closer to the corner, pressing himself into the shadows and walking as if the ground were about to give way under his feet. Over the hum of electric lights from above, he listened.  

“So what exactly is in here?” The voice was male, fraught with forced amusement and slurred with alcohol.

The next voice seemed to tinge the air red with laughter. “Something fun,” Tauriel replied. He heard her fumbling with the storage unit’s lock. She was going to open it, and usher the man into the darkness inside. Bard knew what was waiting for him there.

Tauriel was aware of him as soon as he stepped around the corner. She straightened from the storage unit with a frown, eyes flinty in the harsh light. Her companion—so young, his face nervous yet eager—turned to Bard with a start. Bard ignored him. Instead he looked into Tauriel’s eyes and nowhere else, fury rising to a scream he could hardly bite behind his teeth.  

“Get out of here,” Bard said to the man without looking at him.

The man opened his mouth, to protest, to justify. Bard took a step forward. The container of blood in his hand sloshed. “Get out!” Something in his voice shattered the thickness of the air around him. The man glanced at Tauriel one last time and then hurried back towards the main road. Bard waited until his footsteps faded away before he trusted himself to speak.

“I don’t,” he began, then stopped. Anger chewed at his throat like a pair of jaws opening and closing, scarcely letting the words out. “I don’t believe this.”

Tauriel shrugged, as if there were nothing to be done about it. “What did you expect?” Her face was a pale, pitiless mask over the inky shadows in her eyes.

Bard felt the violence rise up inside of him, seeking an outlet and finding none. The nails of one hand bit into his palms; in the other, the plastic jug creaked. “Leave. And make sure your ‘friend’ makes it back to town safely.”

Tauriel laughed. “And what exactly will you do if I don’t?”

Bard had no answer to that. He was tired, so tired of feeling helpless—but that bone-deep exhaustion that lay beneath his every waking moment was replaced with grinding fury. He took another step towards Tauriel, and this time she saw something in his face that made her falter. “Go,” Bard grated out.

Tauriel glanced between him and the waiting door of the storage unit. “What do you plan on doing?”

“That’s my business.”

She eyed him speculatively. “He’s very hungry, you know. And you’re very tempting.”

Bard felt as if something were crawling over his neck, a piece of his skin writhing against his flesh. He knew it was the scar. He saw Tauriel’s smug smile. “Leave him to me,” Bard forced out.

Tauriel shrugged, making no further arguments. She turned to saunter after her almost-prey, and Bard had to hope that she would do as he had asked. Or that the man was a very fast runner.

He turned back to the storage unit, his heart beating hard. The image of the man’s face wouldn’t retreat; he couldn’t stop thinking about Thranduil yanking his head to the side. Thranduil burying teeth into the man’s neck. Thranduil drinking him until he was dead. Bard wondered what it felt like, that gush of coppery blood plunging down your throat.

Nausea yanked from somewhere in his stomach. Thranduil had done that to _him_ , not so long ago. He could feel the condensation on the jug in his hand as if it were nothing more than a carton of milk from the supermarket. He had seen the hunger in Thranduil’s eyes a night ago; it would be greater now. Opening this door would be akin to throwing himself into a meat grinder.

 _Turn around. Leave him to rot._ The thoughts were almost too tempting to resist. But something held him firm, rooted his feet like spikes jammed into the ground. Tauriel’s words etched on the air in front of him. He lacked the power to drive Thranduil and his lackeys away, or to stop them from killing where they pleased. But maybe it didn’t have to be that way. He could think and scheme just as well as Thranduil could. And he had something that Thranduil wanted.

He slid the door open, the track screaming as sterilized light flooded into the storage unit. The shadows were still dark. Bard strode inside, anger and decision overriding his fear.

Thranduil’s corner was empty now. He had moved to the chair in the center of the floor. His head was bowed when Bard threw the door open; slowly, it lifted to meet Bard’s eye, as he squinted against the light behind him. His face looked worse than it had before, hollowed out, as if some chunk of vitality had been scooped away. In the stark light, his scars looked as if they were gouged into the side of his face. Bard saw the flicker in his eyes when he realized who stood before him. He didn’t look as weak as he had the night before—hunger had lit a fire in him that licked at the insides of his scars and smoldered shallowly in his eyes.

There was no faint voice prompting him to dim the lights. He tugged the door down behind him on his own volition, sending the darkness crashing back around him. This time he did not reach for the flashlight—instead, his hand groped up into the still, dusty reaches and finally batted at the cord of a single light bulb. He switched it on.

Thranduil’s chair was only a few paces in front of him. Without the open door at his back, Bard felt as if the walls were pressing close around him, drawing him and Thranduil together. A flicker of bravado stirred in his chest when he saw the way Thranduil was slumped. He was beginning to doubt Thranduil would have the strength to act on the hunger that raged behind his eyes.

“Where is Tauriel?” Thranduil’s voice was hoarse.

Bard stared at him. “Did she have something you needed?” he said in a voice dripping with false sweetness. Thranduil had the sense not to reply. It would have only spurred forward the anger that surged in Bard’s heart.

“I was going to try and help you.” Bard threw the gallon down on the floor between them. The red sloshed inside, and did not spill. Thranduil’s eyes remained pinned to Bard. “You didn’t have to—to do that, to tell her to—”

“This is what I am, Bard,” Thranduil said with all the gentleness of a needle slipping beneath the skin.

“You can’t expect me to stand by and let you kill people!”

“You never protested before.”

“Before I wasn’t—we weren’t—” Bard’s throat strangled the words out.

Thranduil did not smile. “If I had fed tonight, would you have felt responsible for his death?”

“How could I not?” Bard cried. “I could have killed you. I could have ended all of this. But I didn’t, and now anything you do only happens because I let you live.”

“And why did you?” Thranduil’s head tilted to the side, as inquisitive as a starving dog. Bard didn’t reply. “I was unconscious. Helpless. Killing me would have required no effort on your part. Instead you carried me all the way here—no easy task for an injured man. You had a second opportunity, just last night, with me in my weakened state. Yet you bring me something to ease the hunger.” Thranduil did not once blink. He was devoid of all inner motion. “Why? Why go to such lengths to preserve something which revolts you?”

“You know why,” Bard said. “You dragged me into this mess, but now you’re the only thing keeping me alive.”

“So you want my protection, but you won’t pay the price?” Thranduil’s eyes darted back to the carton on the ground.

Bard’s hands shook at his sides. “You have to find another way. I don’t care what you do, as long as you stop hurting people.”

“I can’t live off of cold pig’s blood.”

“You can. You just choose not to.”

“What would you have me do?” Thranduil’s voice remained as dry and weak as his body appeared. “Eke out a miserable existence for the millennia I could live? You yourself eat animal flesh, Bard.”

“Animal’s aren’t the same as people.”

“They are to me. Our kinds are as different as a human and a cow.”

Bard laughed hollowly. “Is that all I am, then? A choice cut of meat?” Thranduil was silent. “If that’s the case then, what are you waiting for: Dig in.” Bard threw his hands out.

Thranduil chuckled humorlessly. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Don’t I? If you care so little for humanity, why go to such lengths to keep me alive?”

“You’re an amusing diversion.”

“One worth dying for?”

Thranduil’s blank mask crumbled beneath a frown. “I was fighting for my own life, you forget. Protecting yours was incidental.”

Bard crossed his arms over his chest. “Oh? Then it wouldn’t have mattered to you if Azog had torn my head off.”

“On the contrary. It would have mattered very much; because you are mine, and he has no right to you.”

Bard’s jaw clamped shut, anger making his teeth creak. “I’m not ‘yours’. I’m a person. Not a chew toy.”

“Oh?” Thranduil repeated in a mocking tone. His eyes trailed down to Bard’s neck. “I’ve chewed my fair share.”

Like a slow bubble oozing up through a pit of tar, the rage burst on the surface. With a short movement he stepped forward and put his boot on the jug before them. The lid burst, sending blood spurting out onto the concrete floor in lines of color so dark they could have been black. Thranduil’s eyes drew to them like a spark to gasoline. Bard could see the mixture of revulsion and desire on his face.

“I suggest you lap up what you can,” Bard said, rage burning each syllable crisply in his mouth. “It’s all you’ll be getting tonight.”

In the blink of an eye, Thranduil’s hand shot out for him. Bard felt the nails whisk by just over his chest as he staggered away. Thranduil’s eyes were two burning coals, lit with a hunger and a madness that consumed him from the inside. Bard knew if Thranduil had caught hold of him, he would have been dead in moments.

Instead, Thranduil grabbed the pint of blood and dashed it against the wall, with a snarl that Bard felt in the pit of his stomach. Words spilled over Thranduil’s lips that Bard couldn’t understand, curses or demands or pleas, he couldn’t tell. It was all he could do to yank the door up behind him before Thranduil took his first staggering steps toward him. When he wrenched it down again it nearly closed on Thranduil’s fingers.

Bard locked it with shaking hands. As he stepped back he saw the door wrench and move under a tremendous force, but one not quite strong enough to break the lock. Thranduil was trapped for another night.

Bard hurried back to his car, ignoring the way his hands shook and his stomach twisted just as it had not so long ago, when Azog had nearly succeeded in eviscerating him. He had felt no qualms or hesitation about killing that creature—that was all you could do to a monster like that. And Thranduil was no different: just as monstrous, though better at hiding it. He’d killed people. He’d kill again. Bard ought to return to the storage unit and burn it down.

But the thought of Azog reared up in Bard’s mind again, a pillar of memory towering over him heavy with terror. Bard leaned forward, pressing his forehead to the steering wheel and struggling to take in even breaths. He remembered the crushing strength, the empty, insane hunger in the eyes of the fledglings. And it seemed that was only a taste of the darkness, of what was coming after him.

Bard took a shaking breath. He could feel a pit in his stomach as black and oily as the pig’s blood, slowly rising to fill him up. He couldn’t protect his family from that kind of power. Thranduil could.

And Thranduil needed to feed.

 

 

* * *

 

It was high noon when Bard returned.

He left work; he’d been spending more time on the phone explaining that he was behind on work, it would be a little longer until the cars were ready. The kids were at school, but would be back in a couple of hours. If Bard was gone, someone would know about it soon. Maybe there was a chance someone would find him before it was too late. He doubted it.

Before long he had made the now-familiar drive to the storage unit. There wasn’t much time to delay. Still, for a moment Bard simply sat in the driver’s seat, the engine ticking and cooling in the hard-edged air, and angled the rear-view mirror towards himself. The action rang familiar, the motions traced from a different night so many nights ago. He stared at his face for a moment, but not long enough to let himself think about how tired he looked. Instead, he angled the mirror down and stared at his neck. His pulse raced under skin shadowed with stubble. Disgust welled up in him so suddenly it made his teeth ache. He wrenched the mirror away and grabbed what he needed from the car.

The unit in question was a short walk away. He carried with him a violently blue tarp still muddy from the last time he had the kids had gone camping. At this time of day there were a couple cars in the lot, but no one looked at him oddly as he walked with purpose through the storage units. If anyone noticed as he inspected the direction of the shadows and then hung the tarp up over the closed door, or tied a length of rope to the edge dragging on the ground, they chose not to comment.

Once that was done, Bard paused. His heart was squeezing in his chest, his breaths coming short in spite of his best efforts. He was afraid, and not ashamed of it. Maybe there were other paths he might take. But there was a clear one before him now, and it led under the wrinkled blue tarp to the door and the shadows beneath. His hand tightened on the rope in his hand. With a steadying breath, he ducked under the tarp, ensured it was blocking out the sunlight, and then unlocked the door.

As he pulled it open, the grey shapes inside the storage unit leapt out to him. The same boxes. The chair, now empty. A stain on the floor and the pint of blood, empty and in a different place from where Thranduil had thrown it in a rage. Bard’s eyes leapt from point to point in the half-darkness, seeking out any sudden movements.

“Thranduil?” he called, his voice low. “Are you… awake?” When no response was forthcoming, he took a step forward. The tarp rustled menacingly at the tug on his rope.

“So. You’re back.”

Bard leapt. He could see no movement, no sign of Thranduil anywhere. “No sudden moves,” Bard warned. “Or I’ll give this rope a tug, and you’ll get your first tan in centuries.”

“Clever. Very clever.” There was no amusement in that voice, but neither was there the insane hatred Bard had witnessed the night before. “I’m going to step out, if you don’t mind.”

Something shifted behind the boxes. A tall figure rose up and stepped out. Bard’s eyes struggled against the faint light, but he could see the lines of Thranduil’s face—the scars seemed less pronounced now, though there was a grey tinge to the flesh that didn’t just seem to be lent by the darkness. It seemed Bard’s gift last night had not seemed so unwelcome as the hours wore on. He imagined Thranduil licking the blood off the floor and walls with a hard smile of satisfaction.

Thranduil moved towards him with slow purpose, and Bard took a stumbling step backwards, his hand tightening on the rope—but Thranduil merely reached for the chair and tugged it further from the door, until it was resting against the back wall. He lowered himself into it like an elderly man with stiff joints. He gestured to the tarp.

“You know I would be drinking my fill of you right now if not for that little trick of yours.”

“I know,” Bard said coldly.

“I admit, I didn’t expect you to return on your own volition,” Thranduil said. “You seemed quite agitated.”

“You’re one to talk. I don’t speak in tongues when I throw a temper tantrum.”

Thranduil shrugged, as if it had been nothing. “Hunger makes us less than what we are. And I am still very, very hungry, Bard. So I hope you have a good reason to be here, without any more poisoned gifts in your hands.”

“That ‘poison’ seems to have done wonders for your complexion,” Bard replied. He received nothing but sullen silence.

“You cannot keep me here forever,” Thranduil said at last. “Tauriel will return tonight. I admit, I’m disappointed. I had thought we had come to a sort of understanding between us.”

“That was before you were ready to murder an innocent person the night before.”

“And how do you think I’ve been surviving up until now, Bard? Would you prefer I feed only when and where you will never know about it?” There was no mocking edge to Thranduil’s voice. With a lurch of his stomach, Bard realized he was serious.

“You think that matters to me?” Bard snapped. “If people are going to die on my behalf, I want—no, I demand to know about it.”

Thranduil’s smile was dry. “I can give you a list, if you like.”

“Don’t push me, Thranduil,” Bard snapped. “I’ll leave you here to turn to dust if I have to.”

Thranduil’s head tilted. “And if you don’t?” he said. “You must have come here for a reason.”

Bard was quiet a long time. “I’d like,” he said at last, “to propose something. A deal.”

“A deal,” Thranduil repeated softly. “And here I was thinking you would do everything in your power to stay away from me.”

Bard shifted on his feet, fingers worrying at the length of rope in his hand. He could feel himself on the brink of something dark and massive, like toeing the edge of a chasm and feeling the cold drafts eddy up from below. Behind him was only more darkness. There was nothing to do but leap.

“You know part of me will always despise you,” Bard said quietly. “After everything you’ve done to me, I think that’s only fair. But as far as I’m concerned, if any more things like Azog come looking for me and my family, you’re the only thing to stop them from tearing us apart.” Bard’s mouth twisted bitterly. “And if you’re going to insert yourself into my life whether I want you here or not, I might as damn well get something out of it.”

Bard saw veiled interest flickering in Thranduil’s eyes as he leaned back in his chair. “And what exactly are you hoping to ‘get’, Bard?”

“These are my terms: you’ll share whatever information is relevant to my survival, as will I with yours. My house will have my rules—you’ll leave when I tell you to. If I tell you to stay away from my family, you’ll neither breathe a word to them nor let them know you’re there.”

Thranduil tapped his fingers on his knee. “Then you are suggesting we work together.”

“Yes.”

“That would require the assumption that both of us are equals.”

Bard laughed bitterly. “Shocking, I know. But I’ll do my best to look at you as something close to human.”

Thranduil smiled sourly. “I would prefer that you didn’t.”

“Then I suppose we’ll both just have to grin and bear it.”

“And what do I get out of this, Bard? Why should I agree?”

Slowly, Bard took out the knife.

Thranduil’s eyes were drawn to it, the flash of light off the blade. It was a regular kitchen knife pulled out of the wooden block on the counter. It would be sharp enough to do some real damage. If Thranduil were at his strongest, he could stop it before that happened. But Thranduil was weak. And Bard’s hand was tight with purpose.

“Is that a threat, Bard?” he said quietly. Bard did not respond. “I must warn you, despite my weakened condition I will still put up a fight. And killing a vampire with steel is no easy task. You will have to be quick. Hesitate, and I will kill you.”

A humorless smile touched Bard’s lips. “Will you?” He held the knife in his hands, contemplating. Then he turned the blade away from Thranduil, and began to roll up his sleeve.

Thranduil watched the action, eyes darting between it to his face. “What are you doing?”

“I can’t stop you from killing people.” Bard lowered the knife to the curve of his wrist. He refused to meet Thranduil’s eye. “But I can make it so you don’t have to.”

A long silence drew out between them. “You would offer this to me willingly?” Thranduil said. His voice had turned low and velvety with an emotion Bard did not want to recognize. He merely nodded. The edge of the knife pressed to his skin, not hard enough to draw blood. He could feel the sharp edge of it like a love bite.

“If I give you this,” Bard said carefully, “if I let you appease your appetites—you have to swear to me on whatever counts for honor among your kind, that you’ll stop the killing.”

“And you think that you can satiate me?” Thranduil’s voice was light, but his eyes burned. “If I take too much too often, you will scarcely be able to rise from your bed. I’m assuming you find that undesirable.” Thranduil’s tone suggested he, however, would not.

“Then you’ll have to be content with less, and less often.”

“And why should I make myself go hungry? What benefit is there for me?”

Bard’s hand tightened on the knife. After a moment, he took a step forward, drawing him within arm’s reach of Thranduil’s chair. Pale eyes tilted back to meet Bard’s with cool regard. “Because we’re in this together now,” Bard said softly. “You’ve made that choice for me—I’ve no option but to live with it. But that doesn’t mean I won’t set my terms.”

“You speak as if you have a say.”

“I’m demanding a say.”

“And if I tell you that your opinions matters little to me?”

“Fine.” Bard drew the knife away from his flesh, took a step out of Thranduil’s reach. The look of hunger sprung up, even more eager once Bard seemed to be retreating. “Then I hope you weren’t planning on indulging tonight.”

“I don’t need your permission,” Thranduil reminded him, the glint of elongated teeth visible behind his lips. The sight sent Bard’s heart pounding in his chest, as he couldn’t fight the image of those teeth slowly sinking into the flesh of his neck. It was terrifying. It was unimaginable. Yet somehow, the thought that Bard could shoulder that burden brought him only relief. No one else would have to suffer that fate because of Bard’s actions. He would do this for them, all those nameless victims already killed, all the ones he might yet save.

“No. You could simply take what you wanted. But you could have done that a long time ago. You don’t want to force me. You want this.” He raised the knife again. “You want me to do it willingly.”

Thranduil did not reply. He didn’t have to. Bard could see that look in his eyes, the look so cold and so red at once. His eyes became like tunnels, deep and distant and lit from within—but it was the light of an oncoming train, something rushing on a roar of sound ready to obliterate him.

Bard took another step forward, despite every muscle in his body screaming at him to back away. The knife was not so steady in his hand as it had been mere moments before, but it paused over the beating pulse point on Bard’s left wrist. “Do we have an agreement?”

Part of him was wishing that Thranduil would say no, that Bard would have an excuse to toss this knife into the nearest hole in the ground and forget that he had ever stood here offering what he had sworn never to relinquish.

But a slow smile spread over Thranduil’s wasted face. “We do indeed.”

Bard nodded. There was only one thing left to do. He gritted his teeth, heart pounding up the back of his throat, and slowly he pressed the knife deeper into his skin. A hot flare of pain leapt up as he broke the skin, releasing a little pulse of blood to gather against the steel edge as the knife bit deeper. Bard winced, stopping only when the blood flowed enough to begin dribbling down towards his palm. Finally, he let the knife slip from shaking fingers and clatter on the floor. Only then did he let himself raise his eyes to look at Thranduil’s face.

Fervor. That was the only word Bard could have used to describe Thranduil’s expression. He stared at the blood running over Bard’s skin as if it consumed his entire world, as if he were mad with it. He took a step forward, the motion as smooth and unnatural as a ghost sliding across the floor. When he rose his hands, they shook as badly as his voice. “Sit down, Bard.” The usual notes of playful seduction in his voice were undercut: his voice was shaking.

“Why?” Bard couldn’t help but shiver as Thranduil’s hands settled on his shoulders, guided him inevitably backwards.

“Because otherwise you will fall down.” With strength that belied his weakened form, Thranduil pressed him down into the chair. Bard found himself looking up into Thranduil’s face, the wound on his wrist burning like a hot coal. Moments later Thranduil sank down between his knees, kneeling with his hands still resting on Bard’s shoulders. He did not look at the blood—his eyes stayed locked on to Bard’s, and they stared at him as if he were clinging to the edge of a precipice and only Bard could reach down for him.

"I will not hurt you." Normally, those words would have made Bard laugh bitterly and hold up the wound on his wrist. Now, their cold comfort was enough. 

Bard couldn’t stop staring at the glint of teeth behind his lips, the sharpness that drew closer and closer to the glistening red on Bard’s skin. Unbidden, memory leaped to the mind of that very first night, when Thranduil had held him to the alley wall and left a mark on Bard’s neck that pulsed even now. This was so similar, and yet so different—Thranduil’s actions were slow, tremulous, as he took Bard’s hand and raised it to his mouth. Bard watched his tongue slide out and lap up the red lines which had spilled down onto his palm. Bard wondered if he was even aware of what he was doing, aware of the devotion in his eyes as his mouth moved up to the cut on Bard’s wrist. Bard’s breath hissed through his teeth as he felt Thranduil’s tongue slide over his skin, felt his mouth settle over the wound.

Bard yelped as Thranduil began to suck, his hands flying up to grab Thranduil’s shoulders against the sudden wave of dizziness that struck him. He could feel his blood leaving his body like the unwinding of a string, bright red tugging into the darkness. A current seemed to run over Bard’s skin, electricity or vibrations or something he couldn’t qualify; they pounded along with his heart, scattering his thoughts. He was far away, light-headed and soft—distantly he realized he was clinging to Thranduil as much as Thranduil was clinging to him, that without that grip he would fall from the chair to the floor. He was held up by the hands shackling his arm, the rest of his body slumping forward against Thranduil’s shoulders. He heard Thranduil moan in the back of his throat, could see the way his eyes squeezed shut—more than that, Bard could _feel_ him, feel the ache in him like frostbitten limbs being slowly brought back to the warmth. Now it was Bard who felt cold, enveloped by it, pierced by it. Ice sang in his veins. It was beautiful. It was terrifying.  

And then he was going away, leaving his body along with the warmth and the blood. Sight trickled away, and sensation followed it. Bard felt something like the fluttering of dark wings behind his eyes. There was nothing, no light, no warmth. Only the fealing of being in bottomless water in a starless night. And the brush of something, some inhuman touch, the edges of a living hunger that watched Bard with slack jaws and blank eyes. Terror surged through Bard, but there was no fighting it. He was going to die. Perhaps he already had.

And then, suddenly, it was all gone.

He gasped, jolting like a sleeper awakened from a nightmare. His body shook uncontrollably with cold, with something else. All he saw was blue, bright blue. After a moment he realized he was looking into Thranduil’s eyes, staring into them as if they were the only thing holding him to the earth. It took Bard a moment to realize that the scars were gone, that his skin was as smooth and flawless as it had always been, that the flush of warmth in Thranduil’s cheeks belonged to Bard.

A hand reached up to cup Bard’s cheek, trace over the bones beneath it. “In time, this will come easily to you.”

Bard licked his lips, scarcely trusting himself to speak. “I don’t want it to.”

“But it will all the same.” His thumb brushed Bard’s wrist, where a scar had already formed. It leapt beneath the touch. A smile split Thranduil’s features, capped with the edge of sharpened teeth still red with blood. In it, a sense of triumph.

“Oh, Bard. I do believe this arangement will work out very well.”


	15. Chapter 15

Thranduil was not accustomed to waiting. He had his ways of getting what he wanted, when he wanted it. He crouched in the corner of his room with the dusk shadows blending blue into black, the only light coming from the bright rectangle of his phone’s screen. He stared at it, willing it to change. Here, he had no power.

 _I need to see you._ Thranduil’s message hung lonely on the screen, no predecessors, no replies. Thranduil had, on Tauriel’s suggestion, gotten into the habit of deleting texts as soon as they arrived. He had debated it when it came to Bard; keeping the line of concessions immortalized in text was almost too tempting. Now, he could do nothing but read the same sentence over and over, pacing the floor of his apartment with restless feet.

The phone buzzed. Thranduil nearly fumbled it in his excitement.

_Tonight?_

Without pause, Thranduil replied: _Tonight._

_When?_

_Now._

An intolerable wait before the next text arrived. Then: _2 hours. No sooner._

Thranduil snarled in disgust, only narrowly resisting the urge to throw his phone across the room. Two hours was an eternity. He let his back hit the wall, slid down to the floor. His veins crawled like centipedes creeping over the taut lines of his muscles. He could feel the pull from across town, Bard tugging on him like he had his own gravity. The man’s blood was in Thranduil’s body, had been on a near constant basis since they forged their new arrangement. They were connected now. Though Bard stubbornly refused to see it.

Thranduil looked at his watch. He knew what he would normally do in the time it took to wait. But that door was barred to him now—he hadn’t hunted in two weeks, since Bard had found him withered with hunger and held out his hand in a sweet, red offering. The memory made something in Thranduil’s jaw tense, the urge to bite overcoming him. Soon; but not yet. For now, he must learn patience.

He walked, avoiding anywhere that a human being might find him. He was not sure he could resist the temptation of warm skin brushing his, of a careless smile from a stranger. He let his mind drift away, held only by the anchor of one thought: _do not kill._ Thranduil yearned for it, the sensation a life ending within his arms; the final spurt of blood sliding down his throat was always the sweetest of all. Such pleasures were denied to him now, but he did not go hungry without reason. He thought of how Bard had offered himself up, again and again and again. How much sweeter it was when the man came to him freely—though the man was not his yet, not the way he would come to be. In time Bard would forget his armor, the tiresome fear and anger that lurked beneath his cooperation. They always did.

Thranduil wandered from the road to the forest. The pack of cigarettes in his coat pocket grew lighter by the hour, the acrid taste of smoke coating his tongue and helping him to forget the coppery burst of blood. As his footsteps carried him into a rhythm, Thranduil’s thoughts turned to his dream.

He’d awakened that morning with a jolt, while the sun was only just beginning to burn deep red. For a moment it had seemed as if his heart raced in his chest, before his body remembered its own death. His dreams were patchwork, fragments of old memories boiling to the surface and mingling together, populated with faces and impressions from the living blood inside him. Last night he had walked at his sire’s side once more, stalking through a London from a time when its streets resembled little more than the gnawed hollows of a worm-eaten apple. She’d guided him down an alleyway so narrow it seemed a long corridor with a high, peaked roof—in the shadow of a decrepit building, a bundle of blankets huddled against the cold. As the pair approached them, the blankets moved—three pale, dirty faces blinked at Thranduil from the fringe of starvation.

Killing them with his sire had been a pleasant memory. But in the dream, the details were wrong—the woman’s face was not from his own memory, a face he had never beheld with his own eyes. The children on either side were much more familiar, but they did not belong. Thranduil recognized the firm set of Sigrid’s jaw shrunken by hunger, the wavy outline of Bain’s hair weighed down with grease. Thranduil knew the woman then—a part of him, far away, had always known. She was their mother. Bard’s wife.

The dream-image of his sire had moved forward just as she had in memory, walking with a light step and an airy laugh, a golden creature dancing on filth. Thranduil had always followed, always succumbed with relish to the hunger chewing inside him. But not this time. This time he wavered, eyes travelling from face to wretched face, and he had called out for the golden death sauntering towards them to stop. Fear roared through his body like a torrent of icy water as he watched the blanket yanked away, revealing a stomach bulging with the struggling life inside it. Sigrid, Bain, their mother—their faces seemed to swirl together and spin apart, one and the same, and he do nothing but watch as his sire had plunged her beautiful fist into the woman’s swollen belly and pulled something out.

Thranduil had started away with a curl of nausea in his gut that had nothing to do with the constant hunger. Worse than that, his chest ached with an anguish so heavy it seemed to curl Thranduil’s ribs into itself like the legs of a dead spider. That pain ran in his veins, though it wasn’t his. Bard’s grief was written so deep that it tinged the taste of his blood. Thranduil was accustomed to the dreams, populated by figures stolen from his victim’s memories. This lingering bruise of emotion was new.

Thranduil shook off the figments still lurking in his mind. It seemed that Bard had a bad habit of walking through dreams where he did not belong. But through all the years and all his human companions, he had never spent so long drinking the blood of only one person, undiluted with strangers eaten only for sustenance. The blood in his body was Bard’s, and Bard’s alone. The man already had a foothold deeper than Thranduil would admit. No matter. The swell of vicarious life Thranduil felt in his breast made up for the echoes of fear and grief. And Bard’s two hours were almost up.

Exactly on time Thranduil stopped in front of Bard’s house. He’d spent most of his wait pacing the woods nearby, trying to slip away from the hunger between leafless tree trunks. It hadn’t worked. Now, he looked up at windows that were dark and lifeless, sleeping. The door was unlocked. He opened it. The hallway inside was dark, but he could see shifting blueish lights coming from the living room doorway. On silent feet, he glided to the threshold.

The television was on, showing something colorful and animated. It took Thranduil a moment to pick out the row of heads on the couch, tilted askew like jostled milk cartons. He could hear the sounds of quiet breathing over the chatter from the television.

One of the figures stirred, and immediately turned. Thranduil knew it was Bard before he recognized the man’s profile. He had sensed Thranduil’s presence near. Tilda was spilled into his lap, Bain’s legs were stretched across the both of them.

Sigrid was nowhere in sight—distantly, Thranduil registered her breathing from the upper story of the house, along with the scratching of a pen. The two children present looked deeply asleep. Slowly, Bard rose a finger to his lips. _Quiet._ After a moment, Thranduil nodded. He stepped forward without a sound, eyes wandering from Bard to the children piled around him. As sudden and shocking as a bucket of cold water, Thranduil felt a swell of something rising through his chest and twisting a smile onto his face. He felt pride, affection, fatherly love—feelings that did not belong to him. He shook them off like a cloud of irritating flies, instead making himself imagine the sensation of snapping a small neck in each of his hands. There was no thrill accompanying the violence in his mind, but the feelings of warmth safely dissipated all the same. Bard was looking at him in askance—he retreated to the darkness of the kitchen without a word, walking just a little louder than he might have needed to.

Minutes passed. The sound from the television ended, and was followed by sleepy murmurings and slow footsteps up the stairs. In distant areas of the house he heard doors closing, the rustle of sheets, the click of light switches. They did not interest him. He was listening to the heavier set of footsteps making their way to the kitchen door. Bard entered a moment later.

“Sorry about that,” Bard said, voice still thick with half-sleep. “Tilda insisted on watching the sequel too.”

Thranduil shrugged. “I managed my hunger.”

Bard flinched slightly, the mere mention of the bite seeming to touch him like a live wire. A moment later suspicion sprung up in his eyes. “And how did you do that, exactly?”

Thranduil couldn’t muster even a derisive laugh. “Don’t worry, Bard. If I were to drink from someone else, you would know.”

“You’d just tell me, would you?”

“No. But you would feel it.”

Thranduil could see the effect that had on Bard. The man’s eyes skated away nervously, but his hands slid into his pockets, then crossed over his chest. “Right. I guess I would.”

Thranduil stepped forward, putting just a little less distance between them. He wanted Bard to feel his presence—he certainly felt Bard’s. The man was like a beacon before him. “And now, Bard?” he said quietly. It was all he could do to keep his tones cool and dry. “Do you feel anything?”

Bard’s eyes flitted up as if Thranduil had them on the end of a string. For a moment he was quiet, seeming to study his own emotions with as much detachment as possible. “No,” he said at last. “I’ve just been tired lately. A little moody. Nothing out of the ordinary.”  

Thranduil held his tongue in the well of his teeth to stop himself from pressing the issue. Bard was infuriatingly evasive about his symptoms, most of all the psychological ones. Thranduil was forced to allow it. Patience, patience, always patience. In time the man would not be able to ignore the bond growing between them.

Bard concluded his inspection of the floor tiles before finally looking up. “Right. Well. Did you… want to sit down?”

No. Thranduil did not want to sit down. He wanted to shove Bard backwards and tear open his clothing until there was more open skin than he could have marked in an eternity. But he nodded, gesturing for Bard to take a seat at the kitchen table before sitting down across from him. After all, how were they to act? They weren’t friends, yet no longer were they enemies. He’d let Bard do what he needed to in order to make the experience more natural. Even when every minute more was a dry agony pounding in his veins.

“So,” Bard began. “It’s been a couple of weeks now. And correct me if I’m wrong, but nothing else has come skulking around the shadows in search of a missing vampire lord.”

“You are correct,” Thranduil said with some reluctance. Not because it was a lie: it was only that he was loathe to admit that Bard’s agreement might be more practical than the man might have known. Being barred from hunting meant that there were no bodies to make disappear, no missing persons cases to point any watchful eyes in their direction. To all but the most skilled hunter, there would seem to be no vampires in the area at all. But of course, there were few of his kind more skilled at the art of killing than the one that currently hunted them.

“It’s as I suspected,” Thranduil continued. “Azog had not told his fellow hunters our location. He had planned on dragging me before his master himself, and sharing none of the glory.” A cold smile spread over Thranduil’s lips. “His pride and ambition have likely saved our lives.”

“For now,” Bard allowed. “I still don’t know much about what’s still hunting us. All I have of him is a name: ‘Smaug’. Sounds like something we’d be better off leaving to the EPA.”

Thranduil repressed a frown and made a note to ask Tauriel what the EPA was. “Is there more you would like to know?”

Bard smiled grimly. “Knowing why exactly he’s so desperate to kill you might be a good start.”

Thranduil sighed, running his hands along the grains of the table wood. “That’s complicated.”

“I’m all ears.”

Thranduil glanced up to see Bard was watching him carefully, his eyes hard. Perhaps the man was waiting for a reason to claim Thranduil was withholding information, breaking the terms of their deal; maybe he wanted an excuse to call the whole thing off. If Bard wanted to stop, he needed only say so. But of course he wouldn’t do that—and unless he did, Thranduil had agreed to share his knowledge.

“Smaug does not want to kill me,” Thranduil began tiredly. “That would not be enough for him. He wants to negate my existence—to destroy me entirely, in form, thought, and memory. In general, killing our kind seems to give him a singular pleasure; if he had his will, most of us would be exterminated.”

“But why?” Bard pressed. “He’s one of you, isn’t he?”

“On one level, he is at our heart. On another, he is nothing like us.”

Bard groaned, rubbing a face over his hand in exasperation. “No riddles, Thranduil. Just tell me.”

Thranduil’s nails rasped over the wood of the table as he followed its grooves. Even speaking of Smaug brought memories rising to the surface, bathed in a horror Thranduil was singularly poised to appreciate. The knowledge Bard asked for was closer to his heart than the man could know.

“He was the first,” Thranduil said at last. “The sire of all sires, the original vampire. He was stalking the primordial forests while humans still hunted the mastodons. It was he that began to build our race, out of loneliness or practicality or simple boredom—none now know that are likely to tell. Azog was one of his first.”

“But that would make him and Azog—what, tens of thousands of years old!”

“Indeed.”

Bard’s eyes stared off into space for a moment. “I killed a vampire from the Ice Age,” he murmured.

Thranduil’s lips twisted. “ _We_ killed him.”

But Bard wasn’t listening. “So if he was the one who began creating more vampires in the first place, why would he want to exterminate them?”

“Smaug is very particular about those he believes are worthy of the gift,” Thranduil said, unable to keep the sneer from his voice. “The more vampires he sired, the more difficult it was to keep them under his control. After long enough, some of his fledglings began to wonder why they shouldn’t simply create more vampires themselves; as companions or as servants to do their bidding. But these new vampires were different—they were a generation away from Smaug, and there was more humanity in their blood. Smaug could not control them the way he could his own fledglings. And these new vampires began to sire more of their own, until their blood, as Smaug saw it, was completely impure.” Thranduil’s fingers tapped on the counter. It was difficult to fight down the anger that came hand-in-hand with this subject. He knew that Bard had noticed.

“And so,” Thranduil continued, “after it had gone on for long enough, Smaug took action. He killed all his fledglings that had created vampires without his permission, and set his remaining followers to hunt down those that remained. Many were killed. Those that escaped went into hiding. But whenever Smaug awakens from his long sleep to walk the world again, he seeks them and their offspring out.”

Bard’s eyes were veiled as he processed this information, deep in thought. It was more than Thranduil had ever told a human about his kind. Knowing that Bard had that information was disconcerting. But in the end, it could help them survive.

“Is that the only reason Smaug wants to kill you?” Bard said at last.

Thranduil smiled humorlessly. “Not exactly. I also came very close to killing him.”

Bard laughed, more out of shock than amusement. “Is killing ancient vampires a personal hobby of yours?”

“I indulge it whenever I can. This time in particular was nearly half a millennium ago; my sire and I had made an effort to turn and train as many as we could, an enterprise which took years. With our combined strength, we sought to destroy Smaug and his followers once and for all.” Thranduil shrugged. Suddenly his throat felt very tight. “We failed.”

Bard nodded grimly. “Pity.” Thranduil was inclined to agree. His mind churned with memories of that night, the dark blood on the ground, the sounds of flesh being torn apart. Above all, the smell of smoke. He wouldn’t think about that. Not when he was here with a living man in front of him, a living man whose blood crept sluggishly through Thranduil’s veins.  

Restlessness drove him from his seat, itching in his muscles and bones. He began to wander around the kitchen, noting the tension in Bard’s shoulders when he stepped out of the man’s line of sight. The man may have been confident that Thranduil wouldn’t hurt him, but instinct died hard. He ran his fingers over the counters, opened a few drawers, before finally stopping to open the refrigerator and peer inside. There was more food than there might have been a scant few months ago, and much of it was fresh and organic.

A satisfied smile crossed Thranduil’s lips. Bard had held out admirably long before finally accepting Thranduil’s money. All his time out of the shop had taken its toll, and the gas bill was only climbing as winter drew closer around them. It was his children that got to him in the end. He wanted the best for them. There was one shelf in the refrigerator that was devoted almost entirely to bags of spinach and bottles of water—that was all for Bard. Thranduil looked on those with particular approval.

“You’re letting all the cold air out,” Bard called from behind him.

Thranduil ignored that. “You’ve been eating well, it seems.”

He could hear Bard’s fingers drumming on the surface of the table. “Are you asking me for a thank you?”

“No. I’m only looking out for my own palate.” Thranduil moved on to the freezer without turning to savor Bard’s undoubtedly sour expression. After a moment he pulled out an elderly carton of ice cream, spiked with ice crystals and dribbles of frozen chocolate. “You know this expired three months ago.”

“Expiration dates are a hoax,” Bard replied. “It’s still fine to eat.”

Thranduil shot him a disparaging look. “Still. Ice cream will curdle your blood.”

At that, Bard stood up and grabbed a spoon from one of the half-open drawers. He plucked the carton of ice cream out of Thranduil’s hands, and Thranduil was painfully aware of all the tiny points where their fingers brushed. Bard dug the spoon in with some difficulty. “Hope you like chunky monkey,” Bard said, taking a massive bite. Thranduil watched the whole show with an expression that was half-irritation, half amusement. After a moment of contemplation, Bard nodded. “The ice cream is fine. Put it back.”

Thranduil made a face, but he did as he was told. The freeze swung shut with a puckering sound, leaving the two of them standing face to face. Bard blinked, as if surprised by how close he’d let himself get—or the fact that he didn’t move away.

At once, the hunger that Thranduil had forced to the back of his mind came roaring forward, a wall of seething red that pressed itself to the insides of his eyes and leered at the prey before it. It was all he could do to stop himself from closing that distance in a blur, from taking Bard right there on the kitchen floor. Yet mingled with the need that set his teeth tight together was something else, a strange tenderness that filled his skin like the trembling surface of a water droplet. It was strange, squatting inside him and urging him to do something that wouldn’t end with Bard’s blood on his teeth. He reached out his fingers and gently trailed them down Bard’s cheek. Stubble rasped beneath his hand, the skin roughened by winters and summers and lack of care. Bard’s gaze hardly faltered under the touch, his own heart beating so fast Thranduil could feel it pounding into him, wanted to open his mouth and swallow it.

He leaned forward.

 A split second later Bard blinked. “What are you doing?”

Thranduil paused, his hand still resting on the side of Bard’s face. He didn’t have an answer at first. And then Bard had shrugged the hand away, maneuvering his body so that the space between them opened up to a gulf. The eager expression of Thranduil’s face threatened to curdle into something more vulnerable. He marshalled it into a smooth smile instead.

“I came here for a reason, Bard. I was hungry.” Somehow, it doesn’t seem like the truth. Thranduil hadn’t particularly been planning on biting him in that moment—he couldn’t say exactly what he would have done if Bard hadn’t spoken. But now the man nodded curtly, back on both familiar ground and enemy territory.

“Fine,” he said. “Let’s take it to the bathroom.”

Thranduil’s teeth clenched in his jaw. Once, just once, he’d thought perhaps they could do things differently. There was no good way to draw blood in that room—Thranduil had tried all of it. It was too full of hard surfaces, the light too bright, the air too cold. No matter what he did, the act was as sterile and uncomfortable. Yet from the start Bard had insisted that if Thranduil fed in the house, he would do it there. Thranduil had learned not to argue. He could feel the tension between them like a taut rope leading into somewhere that Thranduil could not see. Yet every time he began to tug his way along that rope towards whatever waited on the other side, the tension went slack as Bard cut it short.

Without another word, Bard turned to walk down the hallway. He followed, a hungry wolf on Bard’s heels—or perhaps a loyal dog. The thought grated Thranduil’s mind. He felt like he was watching Bard recede into the distance, even though he could see him just down the hallway. Thranduil wondered what the man had seen in his eyes to make him stop.

 

* * *

 

Days later, Thranduil followed the tug of Bard’s presence to the garage just after sundown. He smoked a quick cigarette outside of Bard’s garage before stepping inside. He wouldn’t let the hunger distract him tonight.

It was a long time before Bard saw him. Thranduil had slipped through the door just as the man was doing some kind of work on a car there—it was lifted high off the ground, and the whine of some hydraulic machinery filled the air. Thranduil did not know much more about cars than what it took to effectively disable one, so he paid little mind. Instead, he watched Bard.

He looked tired, but that wasn’t so unusual. Exhaustion seemed to hang about the man like a worn coat that took up more space than he did. Thranduil could see it in the slope of his shoulders. But despite the shadows beneath them, his eyes were bright and alert as they inspected a clipboard in his hands. When the man finally looked up and saw Thranduil watching him, those eyes jolted wide. His cry of surprise was swallowed up by the whine in the air. Thranduil saw his hand make a short, aborted motion for something in his pocket before recognition set in.

Bard set his clipboard down a moment later, fumbling with a switch on a long cord while shaking his head. The loud noise died out a moment later. “Don’t sneak up on me like that,” Bard said in the resounding silence. “I could have given you a splinter.” He pulled out what his hand had instinctively reached for: a stake, carved to a wicked point. Thranduil had made that one himself. He couldn’t hold back a satisfied smile.

“It’s a good reflex to have,” he said, stepping around the car rather than under it as he made his way closer to Bard. As he did, he saw the tension in the man’s face give way to exasperation. He turned back to pick up his clipboard.

“Are you going to show up here every night I work late?” he asked drily.

“Only when ‘late’ turns into ‘after sunset’,” Thranduil replied.

Bard sighed as he reached for one of his tools, pausing to shoot Thranduil a meaningful look. “I can take care of myself.”

“Of that I am very aware.” That much was true. As sharply as if it had happened moments ago, Thranduil felt Azog’s metal hand twisting into his chest, saw Bard pinned to the car by a single massive hand, gasping for breath. “Yet you do seem to need my help every once in a while.”

“I killed Azog, didn’t I?”

“ _We_ killed Azog. And we are also not having this discussion again.”

Bard grinned down at his work for a moment before proceeding to unscrew the bolts from a tire. “Afraid I’ll win it?”

“I’m afraid your head will swell up so large that it rolls off your shoulders,” Thranduil shot back.

Bard shrugged. The smug smile still twitched at his lips. “I was holding the stake. Just saying.”

Thranduil did not deign to reply.

He could see Bard had no plans on leaving soon, so Thranduil meandered his way over to the back corner of the room where Bard kept his desk. There was an easy-chair jammed into a clear space, with just enough room to recline: the crumpled blanket still lying there was evidence that someone had spent some time in it. Thranduil sank down into it now, wondering how many days Bard had needed to catch an hour of sleep just to keep working to pay the bills.

“You know you don’t have to work late hours like this,” Thranduil said idly. He heard Bard pause in his work, saw the head tilt ever so slightly. “Money isn’t an issue you should worry about anymore.”

“No, Thranduil,” Bard said. “Money is one thing: this shop is a piece of my life. I won’t let it go under.”

Thranduil recognized the tone: there’d be no swaying him tonight. All the same, he couldn’t help but argue. “You could be home with your children right now,” he pressed.

“Home with _you_ , more like.” Bard shot him a look. “You’re there almost all the time as it is.”

“What can I say? I don’t have a life,” Thranduil said, deadpan.

Bard laughed, a sudden, compulsive sound that seemed to surprise even him. Afterwards he glanced over his shoulder to shoot Thranduil a reproachful glare, as if making him laugh was something he ought to be ashamed of himself for. Thranduil merely smiled placidly until Bard turned his attention to the car.

Behind his smile, he turned over Bard’s words in earnest—he had spent many of his nights in the man’s company of late. Ever since they sealed their mutual agreement a month past, it had been hard to do anything else. He had to feed twice a week—he could go for longer, but not without feeling the effects. And of course, he couldn’t take too much. Bard needed to be functional in order to care for his work and his family. Thranduil spent no small amount of time fantasizing about draining Bard properly, rather than the short, agonizing sips he forced himself to take now. But there was nothing to be done about it. The man was weakened as it was.

“I hope you’re not in a hurry,” Bard said, and by the tension in his voice Thranduil knew that Bard’s thoughts had wandered a similar route. “I have some more work to get done here before heading home. It might be a while.”

“I can wait,” Thranduil replied. In truth, he was as tired as Bard looked. His veins seemed to tighten around his muscles like twine. He needed blood, and more than Bard was able to give. His mind turned to the stark, street-lit avenues that wormed their way through the center of town, and the dark alleyways that knitted them all together. There would be people on those streets, careless so close to home. It would be an easy thing to take them, open their throats, slake the hunger that gnawed at his throat like a dog with a bone.

Thranduil watched as Bard finished unscrewing the nuts on the tire, the muscles of his back tensing beneath the shirt. If he fed from someone else, Bard would know—and that was exactly the kind of thing that would lose the man’s trust and cooperation forever. Thranduil was coming to find that such things were more pleasant than the feeling of a stake jammed centimeters from his heart.

Bard lifted the tire free with a grunt, lowering it carefully to the ground. With a sigh, Thranduil closed his eyes and prepared to settle in to something resembling sleep. Immediately his head swam as vividly as if he were standing on the deck of a ship, as if he was pitched into dark waters.

He heard a soft cry, and the sound of something hitting the ground.

Thranduil’s eyes flew open in time to see Bard slide to the floor, his body hitting it without making any attempt to break the fall. In a second Thranduil was up and across the room as he hurried to Bard’s side. As soon as he saw the man’s eyes were open and blinking in confusion Thranduil felt a pang of relief. “Bard? What happened?” he said as he knelt down beside him. Bard made no attempt to get up.

“I don’t know…” he mumbled, eyes roving from the tire fallen on its side to the place in the air he should have occupied if he hadn’t fallen down. “I just got really light-headed all of a sudden…”

Thranduil swore internally. “Have you been drinking enough? Eating?”

“I might have skipped dinner…”

This time, Thranduil’s curse wasn’t held behind his teeth. “Bard, you need to take care of yourself,” he said. “Having your blood routinely drained will make you weak, if you let it.”

“I know,” Bard snapped, deprived of his usual vehemence by his position on the floor. “I don’t need your concern.” He hauled himself into a sitting position without asking for Thranduil’s help, letting his head rest against one of his knees once he was more upright. Thranduil watched him, teeth slotted together to keep the jostling line of comments on his tongue in check. The concern he’d felt evaporated so completely Thranduil told himself the emotion hadn’t been his to begin with.

“You did come to me for help,” Thranduil said in a tone that was quiet yet not safe.

“I came to you for protection,” Bard muttered into his knee. “Not to hire myself a nursemaid.”

Anger came as quickly as a spark on gasoline. “Don’t worry,” Thranduil said. “I’m only looking out for my own investments, after all.” He reached out to trail a hand through Bard’s hair, his fingers tracing the artery that ran down Bard’s neck. Bard was his. The man must remember that.

He felt it as immediately as a kick in the chest: a shudder moving through his body, a sudden wave of dislike. He felt it so keenly: the anger, resentment, a slight tinge of shame. And then just as quickly it was gone, leaving Thranduil with only the tension in Bard’s shoulders to know how the man was feeling. He’d wanted to make the man uncomfortable: seeing it now gave Thranduil no pleasure.  Not when he’d felt the man’s emotions rushing through him as if they were his own.

Thranduil stood, leaving the man on the floor to walk a few short paces away. It had never been this bad before. When he fed off of a stranger, he might experience their emotions in the moment, tasting each one and swallowing it whole. After a kill his dreams were often populated by people he had never met, places he had never been; memories lingering in the living blood in his body. But this wasn’t a single night of bloodlust. He’d been drinking from Bard, and Bard alone, for weeks. And something was bleeding through.

It was only when he heard Bard begin to struggle to his feet that Thranduil turned back to him, and offered him a hand without a smile. After a moment’s hesitation, Bard took it. His hand was warm in Thranduil’s, and Thranduil let it go as soon as Bard was steady. He knew he would not drink from Bard tonight, no matter how hungry he was. Not when the act would be stiff and brittle, and tasting only of anger and resentment.

For a long moment Bard didn’t look at him. At last he heaved a sigh. “I’m very tired,” he said at last. It was as close to an apology he was likely to come.

Thranduil made a noise in his throat, as sympathetic as he could bear. “Perhaps you should rest.” It was enough. The tension slowly bled out of the air, leaving an ashy taste in its wake.

Bard looked back to the fallen tire. “Yeah. I should probably go home.” His voice was dull, listless. It didn’t make the sentiment less true. As much as he might hate it, Bard should be taken care of. And who better to do it than the one who was stealing his life away?

“I’ll drive,” Thranduil said. Bard did not argue. That in itself was one small victory, but not one Thranduil was likely to savor.

 

* * *

 

It was two in the morning when Thranduil came to the house, muscles still fraught with the tension of a night patrolling for scouts. He and Tauriel had found nothing, though that wasn’t the reason Tauriel had sent him back towards town with a curt comment about his hunger distracting her. It seemed the more time passed, the more alien he felt to her—and her to him. She was bound to him still, their connection as strong as ever; but now he shared it with another presence pulsing at the edge of his consciousness. His bond to Bard was temporary, and would dissolve as Thranduil stopped drinking from him; but it was also strange, buffeting him with emotions and impulses he would never have felt from Tauriel. Perhaps she felt the fringes of that life, and cringed away.

When Thranduil inspected the house, Bard’s window was the only one with a light on behind it. He’d half been hoping for the pleasure of waking Bard up: sitting on the edge of the bed and watching the man’s face struggle from slumber to alertness was always enjoyable. But it seemed Bard had insisted on destroying what little sleep he might have managed on his own.

Thranduil made his way to the front door and unlocked it with the key Bard had given him a week ago. He was careful to shut the door quietly, to avoid the places on the floorboards that would heave a groan when treaded on. After all, the children were asleep. It wouldn’t do to be interrupted. A slash of light cut the hallway from Bard’s partly open door. Thranduil pushed it open and stepped inside.

He found Bard sitting in bed, surrounded by open books with his head propped on his fist. He didn’t look up when Thranduil came it—it was only when the door scraped shut behind him that the man jolted upright, glancing around with bleary eyes. He must have fallen asleep sitting up.

A small smile crossed Thranduil’s lips. “If you wanted to become nocturnal you could always become a vampire.”

Bard’s smile was haggard. “I’ll pass for now.”

Thranduil crossed the room. Where once his presence might have made Bard go cold and rigid, now Bard merely scraped the sleep from his eyes and shut the book in front of him. Thranduil recognized its old cover, as well as many of the other fat volumes sitting open around him. He leaned in to scrutinize a page.

“ _Here it is to be noted that the Devil is more eager and intent upon tempting the good rather than the wicked, although in actual practice he tempts the wicked more than the good, because more aptitude for being tempted is found in the wicked than in the good_.” Thranduil looked up to Bard and raised his eyebrows. “Not much of a bedtime story.”

Bard chuckled quietly as he picked up the volume in question to inspect the cover. “The _Malleus Malificarum_. One of yours, I think.”

“It was,” Thranduil said. Finding an English translation had been nearly impossible, until Tauriel had helped him order it off of Amazon. Ever since Azog’s attack Bard had been asking more and more questions about Thranduil’s kind, and Thranduil found his own answers hardly slaked Bard’s curiosity. It hadn’t been such a difficult task to track down some books of interest and leave then on Bard’s doorstep. After all, Thranduil had been alive when most of the historical texts were written. He knew which ones were accurate.

Bard was picking up a second volume, a newer volume whose pages looked warped and stained by coffee nonetheless. “I saw this one at the library. Couldn’t resist.”

Thranduil tore his eyes away from Bard’s wan smile to the cover: _Dracula._

He snorted faintly. “Certainly more entertaining than Kramer. And not as inaccurate as some.”

Bard closed the book. “Not as inaccurate? I hope you’re not trying to tell me that you’ve been able to turn into a bat all this time.”

“You truly think I could keep that kind of information to myself?” Thranduil sank down on the edge of the bed, keeping a comfortable amount of distance between himself and Bard. Thranduil took in a slow breath. The smell of the man’s skin was familiar, comforting. He wanted it closer to him. But he wouldn’t reach across that distance between them only to see Bard pull away.

Bard was looking thoughtful, tapping the book in his hand like a pitcher throwing a ball into his mitt. At last, he seemed to decide on what he wanted to say. “And was that what you were doing back then?” he asked. “Terrorizing villagers, calling up wolves, turning London’s purest into monsters?”

 Thranduil tilted his head, letting the current of years carry him back. “In the late 1800s, I would have been in Greece.”

“Greece?”

“The Olympics were held there in the summer of 1896. I liked it there, and decided to stay.”

Bard shook his head. “It’s so odd to just be talking about these things like they’re normal.”

“If you prefer, you can periodically gasp in awe.”

“Quit being such an ass for more than five minutes and maybe I will.” Bard began closing the rest of the books, stacking them in a large and increasingly precarious pile on his nightstand. “I’ve looked through a lot of the lore. A lot of it seems pretty contradictory,” he continued over the rustle of pages. “I still don’t understand what Azog did to—to those people.”

Thranduil remembered the fledglings, with their bodies scarcely held together and their minds completely disintegrated. “I doubt the nuances of creating a vampire would be found in any of those books. Most of them concern only how to destroy us.” He spread his hands over the bedspread, toying with the image of Bard spread out on it. Not the time, he supposed. “The fledglings you saw that night were improperly formed, and given no choice in their transformation. There was too much life in them when Azog began the process—their bodies couldn’t sustain the change they were going through. If any had survived that night, they would have been dead within a week, unable to eat as a human or feed as a vampire. In this way, Azog had his army without bestowing the gift onto any he saw as unworthy, or risking the lives of any _true_ vampires.”

“Why would they help him, if he forced such a fate upon them?” Bard asked.

There was pain in his eyes, sympathy for Azog’s victims. Thranduil was glad he did not feel the echo of that emotion. “A sire’s influence over its fledglings is very powerful,” he said. “Especially one as old as Azog. He would not have given them a choice.”

Bard hesitated. “And how do you create a vampire properly?”

“You’ve done the research.” Thranduil gestured at the pile of books. “What do you think?”

Bard took in a breath. “I’m not sure. Some cite a kind of ritual, but others… others say being drained of blood is enough.” He fell silent.

“You’re worried that I’m trying to turn you.” After a moment, Bard nodded tersely. Thranduil shook his head. “To become a vampire you must feed from someone who feeds from you. You cannot turn until you take back as much as you give. An act of mutual consumption. No, I’m not try to turn you.” Thranduil watched Bard from across the bed, studying the effects of his words. Whenever he drew closer to Bard he felt as if that strange balance was in place, the weight of things given and taken held against each other in a weight that would inevitably yank them apart. Bard would give Thranduil what he needed, but he would never receive what was offered in exchange. What exactly Thranduil wanted to give him, he was not quite sure.   

“Why haven’t you?” Bard said at last. “You said you’ve done it in the past.”

Thranduil leaned back, staring at Bard contemplatively. “Yes, I’ve done it in the past. Those times were a mistake.” His eyes travelled over the shift in Bard’s shoulders as he breathed, the way his brow might crease with a thought or his cheek shift as he chewed its interior. Bard was full of motion, life. It was hard to imagine what might be left when all that was stripped away. “Certain aspects of humanity simply can’t be translated to my kind. Something is irrevocably lost when a human becomes a vampire.”

Bard snorted derisively. “Like a soul?”

Thranduil shot him a mournful look. “No, perhaps that is inaccurate—a human estimation. To be a vampire is to be life mixed with death, with nothing subtracted. A piece of the sire lives on in their creation, warping whatever was whole. If I were to bite you, I think you would become something different entirely.”

“Afraid I’d be too much like you?” Bard only sounded as if he was half-joking. The other half was icy cold.

Thranduil watched him with a cool smile. “If I was to turn you, then yes. In some ways, you would become more like me. The bond between us would be strong, much stronger even than it is now. Believe me, the idea has its temptations.” Thranduil’s eyes travelled down his neck, picking out the faint scars that lingered there, knowing that more were hidden out of sight. “But you would simply not be you.”

Bard was quiet a long while. “Do you remember what you were like? When you were human.”

Thranduil ran his tongue over his teeth, an unconscious gesture. “The memories grow warped, dim. Like an old mirror.” He shook his head slowly. He had forgotten what it was like to feel a heartbeat of his own, to feel life tugging him one way and the next like a boat on a rough ocean. Sitting this close to Bard now, however, he could guess at the sensations again.

“What about your sire?” Bard pressed. “You said that a vampire takes on some of the traits of the one that created them, right? What was your sire like?”

Thranduil felt a sudden sharpness digging into his breast, and from the open and largely untroubled look on Bard’s face Thranduil knew this emotion was his own. He drummed his fingers on his knees, struggling to dredge up the memories without handling them. “Powerful. Ruthless. But she saw beauty where I could find none. She wanted to crack the world open and drink its marrow.”

“And how much of her do you think is in you now?”

Thranduil could see the point Bard was trying to make, the straws he was grasping for. “I was never a good person, Bard. There’s not much to tell.” When Bard said nothing, a bitter smile crossed onto Thranduil’s face. “Were you hoping that I had a heart of gold underneath it all?”

“A metal heart would certainly be cold enough.” Bard met his gaze. “What happened to her?”

Thranduil was quiet for a moment. Abruptly, he stood. “I’m very hungry, Bard. I would prefer to attend to that now.”

Nothing could have been more effective. Whatever camaraderie might have hung suspended between them, whatever faint hope reaching out—it died the second those words left Thranduil’s mouth. Instead Bard nodded, terse, and rose to make his way to the bathroom. There would be no more questions about Thranduil’s past for some time. Not after Thranduil reminded him so harshly of what he was.

He didn’t want to push the man away, but how else was he to evade Bard’s increasingly perceptive questions? He wanted Bard’s trust, without giving him a reason to grant it. Only moments ago things had been so easy between them. Yet stepping into the harsh light of the bathroom with Bard’s resigned face before him, the idea of carrying that ease one room over was impossible.

 

* * *

 

The days went on, grew colder, sharper. Thranduil patrolled his territory, sometimes with Tauriel, sometimes with Bard. The leaves went from red to brown, and then fell. Frost appeared on the windows each morning. Whatever Bard was to him wavered like a candle flame shuddering in a draft, never one thing or the other. Two months had gone by since that day in the storage unit. And through every moment, Thranduil yearned to feed.

Nights like this had begun to feel routine.

He stood in the center of the bedroom while Bard shut the door. The locks slid closed with a faint click: they wouldn’t be disturbed. Thranduil turned around with a smile, to find Bard standing aimlessly with his back to the door.

The man’s face was still tinged with a delectable flush from the cold air outside—Thranduil had shown him where a new cache of stakes had been hidden in the woods nearby. The colder it got, the warmer Bard seemed. Thranduil wanted to drink him down in boiling gulps. Distantly, he felt for Tauriel like a net trawling through dark ocean water. He felt nothing. She was nowhere near him now. Perhaps after their altercation last night, she had finally decided to follow his suggestion and patrol the perimeter. He doubted she would interfere with his business tonight.

“Of course, all those weapons won’t be very useful if I can’t get out of the house to get them,” Bard was saying.

Thranduil shook himself out of his reverie. Hunger made it difficult to focus. “You may move some of them inside for your own use, but the rest must remain where Tauriel can get them. And since you insist on refusing her an invitation…”

“A decision I’m not budging on,” Bard said firmly.

Thranduil tilted his head. “Trust her or not, Tauriel has been essential to our continued survival here. She has been patrolling the perimeters most diligently—when her efforts aren’t being repurposed as a babysitter.”

Bard sighed, dragging his hands over his face. Only the night before his eldest daughter had gone for a jaunt through the forest, chaperoned by the one person Bard would likely have done anything to keep away form his children. The memory of their confrontation clearly still weighted heavily on her father. “Sigrid is becoming more and more suspicious. I don’t think she’ll buy my lies for much longer.”

“Would you tell her the truth?”

“Of course not,” Bard snapped. “You think I would do that to her?”

Thranduil leaned back on the wall, head tilted back. “Then I suppose you will have to make your lies more palatable.”

“If you’d make an effort to act like a regular person around her every once in a while, maybe she wouldn’t be hell-bent on unmasking your drug smuggling operation. Or whatever she thinks you’re doing.”

Thranduil snorted. “Warmth would be wasted on her as much as it is on you, Bard.”

Bard laughed hollowly. “Charming. But a poor excuse.”

“She doesn’t want my condescension.”

“Then don’t condescend to her,” Bard said in exasperation. “Do you even know how to have a normal conversation?”

“Our conversations are perfectly normal.”

Bard snorted. “Sure they are.”

Thranduil decided not to rise to the note of sarcasm in Bard’s voice; not when the man let his head fall forward a moment later, rubbing his brow as if a band of iron was wrapped tight around it. Their situation wore on them both—Thranduil was hungry, and Bard was depleted. Bard would almost certainly have died if he had lost so much blood through any mundane means; as it was, the bite sustained him with a feverish energy even as it took and took.

“We don’t have to do this tonight,” Thranduil said softly.

Bard snorted, staring up at Thranduil with a faint challenge in his gaze “Have you looked in a mirror lately? You need it.”

Thranduil hadn’t. He hadn’t wanted to. “I’ll live. You, on the other hand, won’t do so well if we do this before you’re ready.”

Bard sighed. “It’s just been a long day.”

Thranduil could imagine the way the man’s skin would leap and prickle under his touch. Bard’s body remembered him now. “Then perhaps I can help,” he said. When Thranduil stepped forward to cup Bard’s cheek, his eyes drifted down to hide behind their lashes. Thranduil’s hands drifted down to Bard’s shirt, tracing the row of buttons there. He felt Bard’s breath hitch ever so slightly as he began to slip them free, watching as the material fell open around the man’s collarbones. By now, they’d done this many times. But not so many that the sight of Bard’s muscle and bone stirred Thranduil’s hunger any less.

Thranduil finished undoing the shirt, pushed open the fabric like a surgeon spreading two halves of a wound. He never got tired of the way Bard’s chest looked against his paler hands, nor the little silvery marks marching their way over his skin, delicate scars marking his shoulders, his chest, his stomach. Each one was a memory. He pressed his palm over Bard’s stomach and felt the man go rigid with a yelp. He looked up into Thranduil’s eyes with a faintly accusing expression.

“Your hands are cold,” he said.

Thranduil looked up in surprise. “Are they? I’ve never noticed.” A devious smile spread over his lips as he pressed his hands back, letting them run over all the warm places on Bard’s chest.

“Ah—Thranduil—stop that,” Bard gasped, as Thranduil turned his hands over to brush the cooler knuckles over his ribs. He enjoyed the way Bard’s muscles tensed and leapt, the short hisses of breath that followed.

Bard’s hands came up to take his wrists in a firm grip. “That’s not funny,” he said, in a tone that suggested it wasn’t entirely unamusing either.

“I find it quite enjoyable,” Thranduil replied. Bard’s hands still held his own in a loose grip. Thranduil scarcely dared to break it. He could feel the touch of Bard’s heartbeat through the contact, lulling him into a soft, red sea. He gave into it, bit by bit, his head growing heavy on his neck. He let it tilt forward, brush past Bard’s ear to trace the artery down his neck. The hunger screamed, so loud he was surprised Bard couldn’t hear it. He made it wait. He wanted to fall into the wells of Bard’s collarbones, to count his ribs through the skin.

At once, Bard’s hands released his own.

“We should move this to the bathroom,” he said with a faint hint of resignation.

Thranduil drew back, struggling to contain the pounding in his head. “There’s no need,” he managed. “We can do it now, right here—” As he spoke, his hands wound into the fabric of Bard’s open shirt like vines entwining with a fence. He took a step back and pulled Bard with him, beginning the chain of motions that would end with them in the bed.

Bard gave a start as if Thranduil had thrown a bucket of cold water on him. At once he had torn free of Thranduil’s grip, shaken him off and stepped away. “I’ll go get ready.” Before Thranduil could argue, he had disappeared into the bathroom.

Thranduil stared after him for a moment, feeling as if he had just watched some small and cherished animal slip out of his hands, and immediately get hit by a car. He’d thought perhaps this time—but clearly not. There was nothing to be done about it. He followed Bard.

Harsh fluorescent lighting jabbed into the back of his eyes as he stepped into the bathroom. It was a depressingly familiar sight. Bard was already at work on his usual ritual, spreading towels on the floor and counter, getting out a bottle of peroxide. Thranduil watched him silently, leaning on the threshold and digging his hands into his arms so hard the bones creaked under his flesh. Thranduil wanted something more than blood. He couldn't be sure what it was, only that he was irritated at not having it.

“You know it’s physically impossible to do this comfortably in here.” Thranduil’s voice was cold.

Bard scarcely looked up. “It doesn’t matter if it’s comfortable.”

Something tore loose inside of Thranduil like a shutter off its hinges. With a snarl, he stepped forward and slammed the door shut behind him, and if he savored the way Bard jumped in surprise then he would blame it on his predatory nature. Bard’s eyes darted to the ceiling, beyond which his children were slumbering away. They did not stir. Now he and Bard were sealed in together, the small space bottling them up and constricting them together. Thranduil did not give in to the temptation to cross the distance between them. Not yet.

“It _does_ matter,” he said. “You’d make this as sterile and passionless as a business transaction.”

“It’ll keep you functioning,” Bard said. “That’s what’s important.”

Thranduil closed his eyes, ignored the red spots that exploded against his vision. “Why do you insist on making yourself as miserable as possible?” he said at last, but this time his voice was soft. To that, Bard offered no answer.

After a long while, he turned his back, and finished stripping off the shirt Thranduil had unbuttoned. He hung it over the shower rod. In this lighting even Bard’s skin took on a sickly tinge. Thranduil didn’t care. He was still so beautiful. Thranduil wanted him then, wanted to devour him piece by piece, wanted Bard to become an accomplice to his own destruction. More than anything, he wanted to be close to that warmth without pause.  

He closed the two short steps that brought him into Bard’s space, pressing against his back and winding his arms over the mans’ chest. A faint grunt of surprise escaped Bard’s throat, but in the same instant his body was already relaxing against Thranduil’s as if his muscles had turned to water. Feeling Bard close to him was like removing an ache he hadn’t been aware he had. The man’s blood was inside him even now, its touch lingering in every vein and vessel. He knew Bard felt it as well, the relaxing in his chest when the two of them were together. For a while he simply stood with Bard, fighting the urges screaming within him to bite down, to draw red. His hand travelled over the man’s hair, and Bard’s heartbeat was steady.

He felt Bard sigh, the sound torn between exasperation and relief. “You shouldn’t do that.”

“No?” Thranduil asked, his face pressed into the warmth of Bard’s shoulder. The smell of his skin so close was like wave after wave of blistering heat. Ever so slightly he shifted his weight, leaning Bard backwards until his weight was pressed close to Thranduil’s chest. “Why not?”

“You just shouldn’t.” Bard’s voice was scarcely a murmur, languid and slow. For all his words, he seemed in no hurry for Thranduil to stop. Thranduil turned his head to press his forehead into the crook of Bard’s neck, felt the warmth seep into him. Bard’s body reacted to him even against the man’s best attempts to stop it, relaxing in anticipation of what was about to come. This close, Thranduil could feel the shadows of Bard’s emotions as if they were scratching at him from beneath the man’s skin. He felt wariness, yes, nibbling and tugging and urging Bard away from him. But Bard wasn’t listening to his instincts now. He wasn’t going anywhere.

Scarcely allowing any more distance between them, he took Bard by the shoulders and turned him until they faced each other. Inch by inch Thranduil shifted forward, until their chests were pressed flush together and he could feel the thumping of Bard’s heart like a faint echo of his own. And then he was leaning forward, nuzzling into the juncture between Bard’s jaw and his neck. Subtly, Bard’s head tilted in invitation. They were moving together now, the bond between them tugging closer and closer, thought gently tugged under the current of red that flowed through them both.

Slowly his lips slid down to Bard’s chest, tracing the scars that littered him, seeking out a bare patch of skin. This was right. This was how it should be. He was gone, far gone, and there was no stopping now. The doors were all flinging open in his mind, and behind them there was only darkness. There was warmth under his lips. He bit down on it.  

He hardly had time to taste the sweet color of red before the hunger behind his eyes lifted up and swung over him, and came crashing into his eyes like the depths of the sea through a pinhole. He was washed away, a thin film of himself, and all he could do was feel.

He felt—

Cold. Cold pierced by a single guttering flame, one which pulsed in a rhythm Thranduil knew well. It grew and grew in his mind, a candle to a torch to a bonfire. The heat was all-consuming, yet he threw himself towards it like the darkness was a tunnel, or a mine shaft, and he was falling towards it with no way of slowing down, no desire to. At the same time he felt Bard, the man’s existence humming on every level, tasting of exhaustion and the hint of fear, but more than anything of the soft pleasure aching in the man’s veins as Thranduil drained them in mouthfuls. That pleasure sang under Thranduil’s skin, filled him up with burning light that could have warmed the sun.

 _You have to stop_. The thought fluttered down into his mind, spinning out of reach when he tried to grasp it. He couldn’t stop. He had only just started, only just begun to feel the heat and the movement inside of him again. He pressed harder, feeling the shift of bone beneath him like the creak of ice underfoot. Things were rushing out of the darkness to him, impressions of pain and fear that were familiar, and others that were not. He wanted more. Needed it.

From somewhere far away, he was aware of something grasping weakly at his arm. He tried to shake the feeling off; his body wasn’t important anymore. But the contact returned, and this time it seared him like a brand—and Thranduil realized that the heartbeat fluttering on his tongue was growing weaker and slower by the second. If he kept on much longer, Bard would die. And that was the one thing Thranduil would not allow to happen.

He pulled back with a gasp, eyes still burning behind their lids as he clamped his jaws shut. The temptation to bite again was too strong—he felt the tremors running through his body, twitching muscles barely held in check. He was close, so close to getting what he needed. But what he needed was to take Bard’s life inside of him and crush it into oblivion. And instead, he pressed his face to the wood of the door by Bard’s head, and let the hunger slink back where it belonged.

Slowly, sensation returned. They had slid to the floor together, Bard slumped backwards against the door with Thranduil tangled along with him. Bard’s hand still gripped Thranduil’s forearm with a strength that belied his closed eyes and slack face. Thranduil slowly pressed a hand to the skin over Bard’s heart, marked with scars from nights not unlike this one.

He turned his head, dragged in a slow breath from the skin at the juncture of Bard’s shoulder and neck just to prove to himself he was in control again. There was no rhythm of breathing, no flutters of life from inside Thranduil’s body. Only that faint warmth, like the heat of a fresh meal that would eventually grow cold and unpalatable. But for now Thranduil pressed himself closer, if only to dispel the bone-gnawing cold still settling into his limbs. Bard’s heartbeat echoed as if there was some vast chamber inside of him, trembling with every beat. So fragile. It was a strange contrast to the strength Thranduil knew was there. He felt steeped in contentment, submerged in it. He knew Bard felt it too.

Slowly he pulled back, lifting his heavy head to look Bard in the face. The man’s eyes were closed, his expression smooth and untroubled as if asleep. But when Thranduil’s fingers flitted from his chest to his clavicle, his throat to his cheek, those eyes slowly cracked open to regard Thranduil with an unreadable expression. Thranduil ran his fingertips down Bard’s cheek, feeling the roughness of stubble there, the tiny motions of the man’s tongue.

Through the haze still clouding his mind, a gentle, uninhibited smile spread across Thranduil’s face. Bard’s answering one was a little more reserved, but no less authentic. Thranduil wanted to keep things like this forever, bottle this moment in formaldehyde and tuck it away where no one would find it. This was good. This was _right_. Slowly, Thranduil leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Bard’s mouth.

The action was unthinking. Thranduil had no more planned on it than he had been aware he was going to do it. Yet his nose brushed past Bard’s as their lips gently slotted together, and the warmth that was blossoming in the pit of Thranduil’s stomach seemed to travel out to every inch of his skin. Bard’s mouth was soft, yielding, but his stubble sent sparks of sensation over Thranduil’s skin. He was lit by something within, felt it shining through his pores and arching through his back. He had long ago forced himself to forget what the touch of sunlight felt like. He thought perhaps he remembered it now.

And then it was over, the light was gone and Bard was pushing back, pulling away. Thranduil blinked at him, still unmoored in a haze of contentment that was even now dissolving away. Bard looked back with an expression like Thranduil had slapped him awake. A moment later his eyes darted away.

“Why did you do that?” His voice was still breathless from the bite, from the kiss.

Thranduil stared at him, uncomprehending. He could see the way Bard’s breath rose and fell raggedly in his chest, the way his heart twitched in the hollow of his throat. Slowly, Thranduil donned a shy smile. “I don’t know,” he said, leaning in again.

Bard turned away before the kiss could connect. His throat bobbed with a swallow just inches from Thranduil’s mouth. Thranduil could hear the dry click in his throat, the shiver of his breath. The moment was slipping away, taking with it the warmth and the comfort and the quiet connection between them. Thranduil grasped after it, settling his hands on Bard’s upper arms before the man could start to get up. He could feel the stiffness beneath his fingers. Slowly he began to knead that tension out.

“It’s okay,” he whispered, fighting to keep the edge of desperation out of his voice. “Just relax.” His hands slid up over Bard’s bare chest, watching the faint white lines his nails left in their wake. He couldn’t hold back the smile that ghosted over his lips as he watched Bard’s body react to him. Thranduil allowed his smile to grow as she shifted a little closer, let their bodies press together in earnest. He could feel the growing hardness between Bard’s legs no matter how Bard himself ignored it. And more than that, he could feel the faint flutter of something drifting over his mind from somewhere far away—the echo of Bard’s hunger twining with his own.

His head was pounding. Bard’s smell was all around him, his warmth settling over Thranduil and lulling his self-control to sleep. Already he wanted to feed again. But that could come later; he’d taste Bard’s sweat before he sampled the man’s blood again.

“I want to show you how different things between us can be,” Thranduil whispered. He let his forehead rest against Bard’s, their noses brushing together. “How good it can be.” Bard’s eyelashes fluttered against his own, the man’s breath coming hard. He could feel them teetering between something, but it seemed on either side was an equal swath of darkness.

“Thranduil.” Bard’s voice shivered in the scant space between them, the start of a sentence that never materialized. Thranduil could feel the air brush his face.

“Close your eyes,” Thranduil murmured as he reached up to cup the side of Bard’s face in one hand. The other drifted downward, skimming over Bard’s ribs one by one. “After tonight, you’ll be begging for this.”

Bard opened his mouth. Whatever he was about to say was lost in the sudden hiss of breath as Thranduil’s hand sank beyond his navel, following the rough line of hair to its termination between his legs. Thranduil squeezed him through his pants, hardly aware of what his hands were doing—all his attention was on Bard’s face. The man’s eyes were closed, his brow creased with something that could have been rapture or agony. Thranduil could _feel_ his want, echoing to him like the brush of a cold wind raising goosebumps in its wake. He wanted to taste it. Soon he would slide down and sink his teeth into the flesh over Bard’s heart, show him how wonderful the bite could feel if only they did things right—

Bard caught Thranduil’s wrist. Thranduil hadn’t even realized he’d let his eyes fall shut until they snapped open, meeting Bard’s gaze in hazy confusion. The other man’s eyes were wild and desperate with something Thranduil didn’t understand, something that shouldn’t be there at all. Bard opened his mouth. “ _No_.”

Frustration clenched at Thranduil’s gut, twisting its clawed hand deep. The feeling was still there, Bard’s lust washing against him like waves breaking on a beach. He could feel the man struggling to keep his head above water. All it would take was a little tug to pull him beneath the surface, make him realize he didn’t need to breathe. Thranduil pressed their foreheads together again, eyes boring into Bard’s. “I can make it pleasant. _Pleasurable_. If you would just let me—” His hand twisted in Bard’s grasp, struggling to get free. But this time Bard’s face was as blank, and his grip was of iron. When he pushed back a second time, Thranduil let him.

Bard scrambled to his feet as soon as he had room. He nearly toppled over a moment later, his elbows coming down hard on the sink as he struggled to marshal his unsteady legs. Thranduil rose up more slowly, the warmth in his stomach turning icy and fetid.  

“Did I hurt you?” Thranduil kept his voice level. Bard shook his head. “Did I misread your desires?”

Bard’s jaw tightened. “Thranduil—”

“Because I thought it was very clear what we both wanted to do just then.”

“Well, you were wrong!” Bard burst out. He ran his hands down his face, hiding it from view. “What did you possibly expect? How could I—do that, with you, when you’re planning on _eating_ me?” A brief pause. Bard threw his hands up. “See? You didn’t even deny it!”

“Why should I deny it?” Thranduil said. “I’ve told you from the beginning that your life belongs to me.”

“Well it doesn’t! I’m alive, I’m a person, and I’m not _yours_.”

“Don’t forget, Bard, that a piece of you is inside me,” Thranduil said, and his voice was not so smooth and collected as he intended. “I can feel what you feel. And just then, we were feeling the same thing.”

Bard stared at him from across the room. “Then what am I feeling now?” he said quietly.

Thranduil was quiet. He didn’t have an answer. All he felt now was cold. Cold, when he brushed past Bard without another word—colder, when he stepped out into the icy air and knew there was no relief waiting for him beyond the walls of Bard’s house. Tauriel was nowhere he could sense her; there was only the feeling of something small and sharp lodged deep in his brain, a dull ache that led back to a bedroom where Thranduil knew he wasn’t welcome.

And yet, he would be back. Bard would make him come back. He knew the man would say nothing about what had happened tonight the next time they saw each other; Thranduil would step inside, Bard would make one comment and Thranduil would make another, until they both were comfortable pretending that they weren’t spinning around and around, caught in the same orbit, until they were crushed together or flung in opposite directions.  At the end of the day Bard would only unbutton his shirt and have Thranduil take what he needed. And he _would_ take it. On that, there was no choice. He needed blood, no matter how bitter the taste.

But it was more than blood that made him linger in the woods and watch Bard go to bed, studying the man’s expressions as he brushed his teeth, ran fingers through his hair, lay down. If Bard showed any signs of distress then Thranduil could go back inside, could ensure that the man was well and try to make things right. There was nothing. Bard’s face was a closed door until the moment the window went dark, stealing him from view.

Thranduil stayed out there for a long time afterwards, staring at the empty space where light had been as something quiet and underfed softly keened inside him. He couldn’t seem to silence it just yet.


	16. Chapter 16

Pale light flooded the clearing as Tauriel paced its edges. Everything was still and silent but for the dead leaves crickling beneath her feet, the dappled shadows of branches sliding over her back. It seemed the world had been pickled in the moonlight, a dead grey thing. She felt that if she stopped moving now she would become a part of that eternal stillness.

Restlessness drove her on. She had set out when the lingering sunset in the air still sizzled against her skin, slipping from the cellar of the abandoned house she had taken as her lair. Thranduil often told her she should find herself some real accommodations, but Tauriel had little liking for staying in a place where humans knew where to find her. Thranduil’s apartment was above ground, and the humans that owned it knew his habits; it was only a matter of a broken window, a torn-down shade, and that would be the end of him. But of course, Thranduil did not see humanity as a threat anymore.

She turned on her heel as she reached the opposite tree line, stalking back across the moonlit glade as if the earth burned beneath her feet. She was beginning to think that Legolas wasn’t coming. She could find the Durins on her own, yes. But without knowing where they were, such a task could take weeks. And from what Legolas said, time was not a commodity she could afford to waste.

There was little she could do to rise above the nervous energy in her gut. It wasn’t just the prospect of seeing the Durins again, and the tangled snarl of emotion that inspired; it was the constant fear that somehow Thranduil would reach through her carefully shielded emotions and _know_. If he discovered that she planned to rendezvous with the Durins he would undoubtedly forbid it, thus forcing her to disobey him. But of course, that would require him to shift his attention from his precious human for a moment; and Tauriel had good reason to believe that wasn’t going to happen.

For now, she could do nothing but wait. Either Legolas would come, or he wouldn’t. Tauriel enjoyed simplicity. What she did not enjoy was uncertainty.

She felt his presence long before he drew close, his approach as smooth and silent as a shark’s fin slicing the water. The quiet, restrained hunger quickly followed, the fire of starvation burning so long and without release that it had hardened what it hadn’t chewed away. A musky, animal taste coated Tauriel’s tongue. She wrinkled her nose. At least Legolas had fed.

He stepped out of the shadows not long after, his hair a slash of white beside each cheekbone. Legolas had ever had the look of a mournful aristocrat. When they had hunted together, it had made luring their prey all the easier. Just as before, he stopped before he had closed the distance between them—a buffer between two wary predators, each waiting to see what the other would do. At last, Tauriel took the first step forward, out of the shadows.

“I was beginning to think you weren’t coming.” Her voice misted in the icy air before her—she was flush with warmth from a recent kill, taken on the periphery of Thranduil’s territory just as he insisted.

Legolas inclined his head slowly. “In truth, I had not planned to. It is still my belief that you and our sire should leave, and as quickly as possible.”

Tauriel’s enthusiasm soured. “I see. Then why are you here?”

Legolas sighed, a well-practiced affectation. “Because I know that you will disregard my advice. And if I cannot convince you to make the smart choice, I can at least prevent you and the Durins from making the stupidest.”

“You might be over-estimating your abilities,” Tauriel said with a grin that faded into something more serious. “I’m glad you’re here.”

A smile tugged at Legolas’s lips. “Sentimentality, Tauriel? From you? What has the world come to.”

She held up a warning finger, the nail just a little too sharp. “If you talk like that I might have to make some changes to the topography of your face.”

Legolas’s smile widened. “Yes, that’s more familiar.”

Tauriel turned to the trees, the waning moon painting their leaves the deep grey of dust. “Are you ready?”

She heard Legolas step up beside her, felt the weight of his familiar presence under her skin. “Follow me.”

They ran. The trees had long since shed their leaves, the dry, frost-edged results crunching like old bones beneath their feet. Tauriel felt each footstep like a heartbeat jolting through her body—how long had it been since she had run with another of her kind, the cold air on her face, the promise of the night to come still fat and rich before her? It was difficult to force herself to remember what they were running towards, the anger and betrayal and the longing. Those were human emotions, she told herself. She tried to leave them behind with the tossed-up leaves in her wake, but somehow they kept chasing at her heels. 

It was some time before Legolas’s pace began to slow. They had passed no roads or houses for some time now—this was deep in the forest, the ground sloping up beneath their feet so that the trees seemed to grow taller before them. Tauriel fell in close beside him, senses alight. She could smell nothing but woods, earth and rot and fur.

“We’re close,” he said. His voice scarcely stirred the air.

Tauriel sensed nothing, no faint itch in her mind to signal the presence of any other than her and Legolas beside her. Yet she did not know these woods, had never set foot here before—on familiar ground she was attuned to her territory, could sense the foreign presence of an interloper from miles away. Here, the trees seemed to press in close and deafen her, hands clamped over her eyes and ears and nose. She had to trust her companion’s judgement.

“We will proceed slowly from here,” he said as they began to walk. “The Durins won’t be expecting anyone but enemies to come creeping into their camp. I am not sure how they will receive us.”

“I have some idea,” Tauriel muttered. In truth, her body was as tense as a hanging rope. The thought of seeing the Durins again, seeing _him_ —well, she’d thought they’d all been dead. She would never have allowed Thranduil to see how that prospect affected her. He and Thorin had cherished their feud for centuries. But the news of their downfall had struck Tauriel like a length of wood to the heart. She’d hated Kili more for dying than she had for awakening Smaug.

And now, it Kili was alive. She might just kill him for it.

She could still remember the first time they had met, eyes meeting across the smoky atmosphere of a pub with the sounds and smells of human merriment buffeting them from all sides. She’d known immediately what he was. The flash in his eyes, the sudden grin, told her he had seen her truly as well. They did not even speak—somehow they did not need to. It had been a game from the very start, who could lure a victim first, out the back door into the dark and mildewed alley beyond. Tauriel had thought she had won, pinning the man to the dripping bricks with no sign of her competitor in sight—until Kili rounded the corner with a beautiful woman on each arm. They’d shared their kills, and fed well that night.

It was only after a week of similar entertainment that their respective sires caught up to them. Thranduil and Thorin had hated each other for so long that Tauriel supposed the mysterious source of the conflict scarcely mattered now. They nearly tore each other’s throats out in the ensuing argument. Perhaps Tauriel would have never sought Kili out again if it hadn’t been for how much it got under Thranduil and Thorin’s respective skins. But the more she saw him, the more she found she wanted to see him again. His memory was like the taste of blood, the sound of a raucous laugh echoing in dark places.

“You mentioned a human,” Legolas said, shaking Tauriel out of her thoughts. “I’d like to know more about the person who Thranduil is willing to stay here for.”

No topic was so sure to put Tauriel in a foul mood. She clicked her teeth in her jaw with displeasure. “You’re asking the wrong person if you’re looking for a list of his incredible virtues. Bard is _nothing_. Just some backwoods mechanic with a dead wife and three little whelps. Back when all Thranduil wanted to do was torment him I had nothing against it, but now, he’s becoming—well—”

“Like me?” Legolas supplied with a wry smile.

Tauriel shrugged. No use denying that much. She hesitated to inform Legolas of the full embarrassing details of Thranduil’s situation—the fact that he was refusing the call of the hunt, skulking around the man’s house at all hours of the night in order to—what? Have _conversations_. Tauriel was accustomed to treating such moral pangs as little more than bouts of indigestion. But it struck her that if anyone was familiar with whatever wracking sympathy or remorse Thranduil was suffering, it was Legolas. Perhaps he could even discover a way to shake their sire out of it.

“He’s stopped hunting,” Tauriel said at last. “Now he only feeds off Bard, and scarcely takes enough to survive. It’s dangerous; he’s weak, he’s preoccupied, and he’s refusing to admit it. Many times I’ve considered just killing the human to get it over with.”

“I would not suggest that,” Legolas said lightly. “If Thranduil is drinking from no one else, then their bond must be very strong. If you kill this ‘Bard’, it may do more damage to our sire than you imagine.”

“He’s already damaged,” Tauriel snapped. “He’d choose a human over his own kind.” _Over me._ That was what burned the hottest in the pit of her stomach: that she could look at Bard, with all his human weakness and frailties, and know that no matter how pathetic the man was, Thranduil held him higher than her.

Legolas was quiet for a long while. The silence was decorated with the whirring of insects, the gentle steps of a deer picking its way through the trees somewhere far away. “You never met Thranduil’s sire,” he said at last. “But I knew her. Not well—she was destroyed not long after I was made. But in many ways, she created me as much as Thranduil did.” Legolas’s eyes stared ahead, but blankly. “It was only after her death that Thranduil began to take humans as companions. Perhaps the connection with a living being was less painful to him that what he shares with you or me; perhaps we remind him too much of her.”

Tauriel’s fists clenched at her sides. “He still found it in himself to create me. Perhaps he shouldn’t have done so if I’m so repellent to him.”

Legolas turned to her with a sad smile. “You aren’t.”

Tauriel bit back the scalding anger boiling in the back of her throat. She didn’t need Legolas’s pity, nor his comfort. Worse than that was the fact that in spite of that, she was comforted all the same. She brushed a few steps past him, shrugging aside the urge to meet his gaze. For a while they walked in silence again.

At once, the crunch of Legolas’s footsteps behind her ceased. “Wait.” Tauriel turned around to discover Legolas had stopped a few paces back, his eyes staring hard at somewhere in the forest beside them. As she watched, he walked twenty feet to the left and sunk into a crouch, and his fingers slowly extended to trace something on the ground.

“What is it?” Tauriel said, walking slowly behind him. As she grew near to him, she saw how the forest opened up on either side of her, as if a line had been drawn through the forest and the trees had stepped back to accommodate it. A road, she realized. It was old and disused, little more than a wide and overgrown dirt path, but a road all the same.

“Someone has travelled this way recently,” Legolas murmured. He brushed aside more of the leaves at his feet, revealing the impressions of tire tracks in the mud below. Looking up, Tauriel saw that some of the young vegetation beginning to reclaim the road had been crushed or snapped beneath the weight of something large making its way up the mountain.

Legolas rose to his feet, staring at the opening in the trees that wound its way further up the mountain. “We follow it.”

Slowly they made their way up the path, following the jagged switchbacks as the terrain continued to climb. Tauriel wanted to hurry ahead, to flush out whatever was waiting for them like a hound on a fox, but Legolas plodded on with slow, resolute steps.

“Can’t we go any quicker?” Tauriel said.

“Keep your voice down,” Legolas replied in low tones. “No, we must not rush. The slower our approach, the less threatening we will seem.” He cast her a look from the corner of his eyes. “You were always the one to deal with them in the past. How do you think they will react to seeing you again?”

“Difficult to say,” Tauriel responded. “Our last parting was… a bit rocky.” Thorin never hesitated to express his violent disapproval of her. Either she and Kili were the closest companions, or trying to kill each other; there was nothing in between. When Tauriel had seen him last they had parted over some sour argument that Tauriel couldn’t recall now. And she couldn’t ignore her own feelings, building up in her ribcage with every step they drew nearer. She couldn’t know how _she_ would react.

Legolas nodded. “Very well. We best be on our guard if we—”

Whatever Legolas was about to say, Tauriel didn’t hear it. She was struck by something behind her hard enough to send her sprawling onto her face on the dirt, a heavy weight pressing cruelly into her back.

She snarled, struggling to twist out from underneath whatever pinned her down—something sharp jabbed against the space between her shoulder blades. _Stake_. At once she wrenched to the side, tossing her would-be executioner off as she scrambled to find her feet. The sound of struggle filled the air, scrabbling dirt and growls that seemed to seep up out of the earth—she caught sight of a blur of motion where Legolas had been, whirling hands and tossing hair, before the hulking shape at her side lunged up for her again.

This time she caught it head on, her hands clenching its wrists, the stake stopped mere inches from her eye. In the dark and the violence there was nothing but the glint of two ferocious eyes before hers. Her adversary roared like a bear, shoving her backwards with such strength she could hardly push back, struggling only to keep her feet. Her back hit a tree seconds later, and the point of the stake migrated, trembling between them, pushed inevitably onward with only Tauriel’s own grip to stop it. It hesitated just over her heart. A triumphant gleam sprung up in those two dark eyes. Slowly, agonizingly, the stake pushed down.

A guttural cry from across the cleaning shattered the air, a sound that Tauriel scarcely recognized as words. At once, the deadly pressure on her breast halted. Wild-eyed, Tauriel looked from the wooden spit about to skewer her to the face hanging above it—it was turned to heed his companion, who was speaking in quick bursts of a language Tauriel recognized but did not understand.

Fighting her shaking muscles, Tauriel hauled in the breath she would need to speak. “We mean you no harm!” she cried. Then, because that seemed like a rather meaningless statement from one about to be brutally murdered, she added: “I’m here for Kili.”

That name turned his attention to her. With the moonlight buzzing in her eyes, he was little more than a shadow with a stake held to her heart. And surprisingly, no taller than she was. Tauriel tensed, anticipating the pressure that would extinguish her existence by inches, when suddenly the shadow laughed.

“Well now. You are indeed.” The gruff, growling voice touched on something in Tauriel’s memory. A second later the pressure pinning her to the tree let up, sending her tumbling to the ground. From her position there, the squat figure before her seemed to tower as a giant. And then the shadow stepped back and lifted his face to the moonlight.

Tauriel took in the rough features, the nose and brow hanging like a slab of rock over a similarly stony face, the wild ruff of hair that stood out around the side of his head like a mane. Now Tauriel could see the runes that glinted on top of his bald head, and on the fingers which still held the stake that almost killed her.

She scrambled to her feet, eyeing him in disbelief. “Dwalin?”

A hoarse chuckle. “Aye. The same.”

On the other side of the road she could see Legolas climbing to his feet, shadowed by another figure Tauriel did not recognize. “You bloody idiot!” she cried. “You nearly killed me!”

Dwalin shrugged. “Dark out. Didn’t recognize you. Thought you were one of _his._ ”

“Oh, so you decided that you’d just stab first and forget the ‘ask questions’ part? Be sure of who you’re poking next time you put a chip of mulch in someone’s chest,” Tauriel snapped. She moved to step forward and rejoin Legolas. A sturdy muscled arm rose to stop her short.

“Not so fast.” Dwalin’s eyes gleamed in the moonlight, studying her closely. “How did you find us?”

Tauriel’s eyes travelled to Legolas. He took a step forward, trailing his own assailant behind. “I’ve been tracking you for some time,” Legolas said quietly. “I had certain suspicions about where you might be going.”

“Is that so?” Dwalin said without turning around to meet Legolas’s gaze. “And you just decided to drop by and pay a visit.”

Tauriel’s jaw clenched. She did not enjoy being toyed with. “I don’t make social calls.”

“Of course you don’t.” Dwalin tilted his head to the side, eyeing her like a wolf might watch a small child through the window of a cottage. “Then I suppose we had better get you where you’re going, eh? Bifur!” He called out a few short sentences in the same hard-edged language. Tauriel saw Bifur take out a bag of dark cloth with something lumpy inside. A moment later Dwalin did the same. A sharp smell immediately struck her nostrils, forcing her a step backwards. Tauriel stared at it uncomprehendingly until Dwalin raised it up before her face. The stench grew tenfold. Garlic. “You’re going to put this over your head,” Dwalin said.

Tauriel took a step back, a snarl building in the back of her throat. “I’ll do no such thing.”

“Ah. Thing is.” Dwalin’s voice was deathly quiet. “You already know whereabouts to find us. That’s reason enough to take you before Thorin himself and see what he wants to do with you. So you can either put the bag on, or I can jam this into your chest and solve the problem altogether.” Dwalin raised the stake to illustrate his point. In his other hand, he held out the blindfold. “So which is it gonna be?”

Tauriel glanced between it to him. Behind him, she saw Legolas slowly nod. After a final moment of hesitation she snatched the cloth from his hand.

“I don’t respond well to threats, by the way,” she muttered as she pulled the rope of garlic out.

Dwalin laughed unkindly. “I’ll keep that in mind.” The herb might not hurt her kind, but its strong scent was enough to dull her senses as uselessly as a human’s. Under Dwalin’s stern gaze, she draped it around her neck before pulling in one last breath of fresh air. Then she tugged the bag over her head. At once the night was obliterated by a darkness she couldn’t penetrate, and a smell so harsh and strong it nearly gagged her. Rather than try to peer through the cloth, she squeezed her eyes shut.

Moments later she felt a yank on her arm, sending her stumbling in the direction of the road she and Legolas had been following. His footsteps fell in with hers, punctuated by the occasional shove from behind to adjust their direction. Tauriel gritted her teeth and bore it. Once she got this ridiculous bag off her head she might just shove it down Dwalin’s throat. But for now, all she and Legolas could do was let themselves be led onwards.

Before long their course turned from the road; Tauriel could feel the faint touch of moonlight on her arms like an echo of the sun, and knew the trees must be sparse. The ground beneath their feet was hard, and it was only her keen balance that kept her from stumbling. All the same, Dwalin did such a good job of buffering her and Legolas back and forth that retracing their steps would have been impossible.

Before long the air changed, went from dry and brisk to the damp exhalation of somewhere underground. A cave. Tauriel balked—a timely shove between her shoulder blades made the decision of whether to continue for her. The earth closed over her, the mouth of a large cave slowly swallowing her up and hemming her in. The press of garlic seemed closer, more choking despite the fact that she didn’t need to breathe. Any confidence she might have felt in her ability to escape was whisked away by the cold stone walls. Fleeing was no option. She was suddenly very glad to have Legolas here beside her.

Muffled as her senses were by the bag and the weight of earth, Tauriel wasn’t sure how long they were guided deeper underground. It was likely only minutes—it felt like an eternity. Only when she felt a strange, dry warmth washing over her face did she let her feet stop, and this time there was no rough hand to shove her onwards. Legolas was stopped at her side—she was suddenly aware of an open space, of the hum of something electric, and the feeling of many pairs of eyes focused directly on her.

Someone pulled the bag off.

Tauriel hauled in a breath of air tasting of rock and water. The smell and taste of garlic still clung to her skin. Her eyes leapt about the room, immediately seeking out a threat in the sudden return of light. The walls were rough-hewn from stone, lit by the steady glow of yellow electric lights cast up towards the cave’s ceiling, throwing the jagged rocky teeth there into sharp contrast and leaving much of the floor still in shadow. The light’s cables wound snakelike over the rock, a trail of violent colors that led to a generator thrumming in the corner. Beside that was the truck, pitched slightly to the side on the uneven rock. As far as Tauriel could tell, there was no other pathway that might offer an escape. And all around her in the orange-tinged gloom, bright eyes watched her and Legolas with hungry expressions.

“Well, well. Look what the cat dragged in!” A cheery voice shattered the silence as a man in a ragged hat stepped forward, a smile creasing his eyes and his arms crossed over his chest. Tauriel recognized Bofur immediately. He’d had that hat for a century.

“I take offense to that,” Dwalin grumbled from somewhere behind, still blocking the way back to the outside world.

“For the record, so do I,” Tauriel said. She wasn’t taken in by Bofur’s easy attitude. She saw the way his hand stayed near the row of stakes on his belt. For all his smiles and charm, he was just as dangerous as the rest. She liked him. But she wouldn’t turn her back on him.

Her eyes scanned the faces, some familiar, others not. Thorin had a habit of drawing people to himself like flies to honey, a coven built not just by blood but by loyalty as well. She could hardly imagine Thranduil managing something similar—her sire possessed the same natural command that Thorin did, but lacked the warmth. As her eyes scraped the crowd, Tauriel saw no sign of him—nor the two other faces she would have liked to see.

“What are they doing here?” a voice cried out. A woman with steely grey hair and an indignant expression regarded Tauriel with suspicion. “Or did I miss the memo that we could bring a plus-one to our secret hiding place?”

“Relax, Dori,” Bofur said, stepping forward to regard Tauriel with a warm smile. “These two are old—well, do we say friends?”

“No, we don’t,” Dwalin said gruffly before Tauriel could answer. “They’re here to see Thorin.”

“Just Thorin, eh?” Bofur said, shooting Tauriel a wink. “Well. I can’t imagine he’ll be happy to see you. Might just tear your head off, in fact.”

“Where is he?” Tauriel asked.

“Gone.” Tauriel’s eyes fell to a young woman with mousy brown hair and wide, rabbit-like eyes. She could hardly have been more than sixteen when she was turned. “They left on patrol shortly after you did, Dwalin.”

Dwalin swore under his breath. “Go. Send out a relief and bring him back. He needs to deal with this _now_.” As he spoke he stepped past Tauriel, shooting her a dark look on the way. From her back Tauriel heard more of the harsh language Dwalin’s companion spoke; the man glanced back and said something in reply with a gesture towards a different part of the room. Tauriel would have put up more of a fight, if it weren’t for the stake lashed to the end of a metal pole their captor was currently brandishing. She followed his lead for now.

Once again Tauriel was bundled across the rocky floor, past the truck and the generator to a place where the ceiling hung lower than the rest of the cave. This seemed to be their living area—bedrolls were spread out at intervals, looking hardly more comfortable than the rock they covered. On a patch of mostly-flat rock nearby, someone had erected a forlorn little hoop with a deflated ball lying nearby. Tauriel and Legolas were shoved down into a corner, their grim-faced guard standing watch a few feet away. Tauriel glanced up to see a massive scar on his temple, depressing the skull like a crater. It must have happened just as the man was turned—no human could have survived that for long, and any wounds he would have suffered as a vampire would be smoothed by fresh blood.

“So. This is going well,” Legolas said quietly.

Tauriel snorted. “Actually, it is. They haven’t killed us yet.”

Legolas’s eyes travelled over what parts of the cave they could see. “They seem organized. It appears they do have a plan.”

“Oh, there’s always a plan,” Tauriel replied. “It’s just very rarely a good one.” Her eyes scanned the relative darkness of their corner. She felt something—a presence nearby she couldn’t describe, like a hum that existed just beneath the noise of the generator. She turned her head, trying to seek it out—just in time to see something moving in the darkness.

With a hiss she grabbed Legolas’s arm to alert him, but his eyes were already focused on it. What Tauriel had taken to be little more than a pile of blankets was rolling over, murmuring with the last edges of a fragile sleep. Tauriel caught sight of a head of curly hair, and scented the smell of warm skin.

“A human?” Legolas mused. At once, it became clear—the beating of his heart twitched at Tauriel’s nerves like the edge of a string. But his pulse was subdued, his breathing slow yet light. With a swift move, Tauriel leaned forward and whisked the blankets away from the man’s neck. As suspected, his neck was covered in old bite scars.

“I suppose they have to get their food from somewhere,” Tauriel mused, even as her quick motion had shaken the man out of sleep. He came fully awake with a grumble, reaching for the blankets only to see two pairs of eyes staring down at him.

“I beg your pardon!” he cried indignantly, sitting up to blink at Tauriel and Legolas with sleep-dulled eyes. “I’m not accustomed to being fiddled with in my sleep, thank you very much!” 

Tauriel stared at the man before her, vaguely bewildered that he should speak to her this way. Yet almost as soon as his outburst was over he had set to fixing his clothes and hair, ruffling his hands carelessly through his curls and rubbing his eyes. This completed, he pulled out a pair of spectacles and sat them on his nose.

“I haven’t seen you before,” he decided at last. “Are you friends of Thorin’s?” As he spoke, his eyes wandered to their guard behind them. He seemed to draw his own conclusions from that. “Or perhaps not so friendly.”

It set Tauriel’s teeth on edge, the way this human was speaking to her as an equal. She raised an eyebrow to Legolas, keeping her face devoid of anything but an arrogant smoothness. “Shouldn’t they keep him chained up?”

“ _Chained up?—_ ” The man cut himself off in his spluttering. After a moment he climbed to his feet, muttering about how it was no loss to him if self-important vampires wouldn’t grace him with their civil conversation. He shuffled off, joints popping, and pulled a ragged bathrobe shut around his chest. Tauriel watched him go with an expression of distaste. Somehow finding a human here of all places seemed a bad omen.

“I suppose it makes sense,” she said aloud. “There’s hardly anywhere to hunt up here. They’d have to have something to eat. Why else keep a human around?”

“Tauriel.” Legolas’s voice was low with tension. “They’re back.”

A commotion was forming near the mouth of the tunnel that had brought them here. Voices raised loudly called out in that strange language, and moments later Tauriel and Legolas were being prodded to their feet once more and guided into the small crowd forming. As she and Legolas were jostled together, Tauriel leaned in closer. “Let me do the talking,” she whispered.

“Is that wise?” Legolas murmured in reply.

Tauriel didn’t dignify it with a  response. Wisdom would do them little good here.

Tauriel wrenched her arm free from their captor’s grip with a snarl, striding forward of her own accord to the center of the throng. A small space opened up around her as she stopped, Legolas fast on her heels. When she came to a halt, she was met with a pair of cold blue eyes.

Silence settled on the small group as Thorin stared her down. He looked much the same as Tauriel remembered him: just as stern, just as disapproving of her. His dark hair was pulled back at the nape of his neck, streaked with the same grey that had been there for centuries. The yellow light in the cave seemed to be caught and reflected by his eyes, the hawkishness of his nose casting sharp shadows over his cheek. Last time she had seen him had been what felt like an eternity ago, when he had lied to her face about the plans that, in no time at all, would awaken Smaug once more.

Tauriel had expected to be angry. Yet the anger she found was like a fiery hand reaching into her chest and squeezing her dead heart tight. It was as if something inside of her had been waiting, crouched beneath her perceptions, until those familiar eyes had sent it lunging out into the open with the scent of blood in its nose. Her tongue probed at the sharpened end of a tooth, testing its sharpness. Here in front of her was the man who had brought all her current troubles down upon her. Protocol demanded her to kneel when meeting the head of a different coven. She did not so much as lower her eyes.  

For a while he stood and glowered, a thing Thorin’s heavy brow was singularly equipped to do. “There had best be a good reason for you to come here tonight,” he said at last, his voice rumbling with the edge of what could have been a growl. “Your presence here endangers everything.”

Tauriel raised her eyebrows, unable to force even a mocking smile. “I must say: this isn’t the sort of apology I was expecting from you, Thorin. And my expectations were never high.”

“Apology?” Cold amusement passed over his face. “What apology could I possibly owe you? You intrude on my territory, risk bringing our enemies down on our heads, and even after that you stand here and insult me. I’m hard pressed for reasons why I shouldn’t just kill you both right now.”

Tauriel saw Legolas shoot her a wary glance— _have caution_ , he would say—but she would not break Thorin’s gaze. “You’d speak of bringing our enemies down on us?” She laughed, wild and bitter. “You are the only reason our enemies walk abroad in the first place. How many more centuries could Smaug have slept, if you and your little rabble hadn’t felt the need to poke at him?” By the end, her words spat out like hot embers, a heat that glowed behind her eyes. “My sire and I have been beset by Smaug’s forces for months. So yes: I’ll have your apology, as worthless as it will be.”

“You’ll have nothing,” Thorin snarled. They were getting into it now, egos ballooning, postures drawing nearer and nearer to combat stances. The scene was a familiar one. But never before had Tauriel wanted so badly to go for Thorin’s throat. “It’s no concern of mine that Thranduil lacks the capacity to protect himself from a danger we’ve long known would return. My business is with Smaug, and concerns neither you nor him.”

“Is that so?” Tauriel shot back. “And of course, that’s what has brought you within a ten mile radius of us now, making every effort to ensure we never knew you were here. Admit it, Thorin: We’re your bait.”

“Don’t over-estimate your importance,” Thorin said. She saw his hands wander down to finger the stakes lining his belt with pointed intention. “We avoided your notice for the very reason you’re here tonight—we knew you would meddle.”

“Well perhaps a little meddling is exactly what you need. If I had known your plans months ago, I could have stopped you from awakening Smaug in the first place!”

“Do not speak as if you understand!” Thorin snapped. Abruptly he turned his back on her, leaving himself open to attack—the gesture was a dismissive one, proof he saw her as no threat. In a way, he was right. With earth and stone locked around her and surrounded by his allies, there was little Tauriel could do. She clenched her teeth so tightly she could feel it in her temples. Thorin continued speaking without so much as looking at her. “Your presence here is of no use to me. Leave now, before I decide on a more final solution.”

“Useless?” Tauriel echoed, shaking off the hands that reached to tug her away. “That’s an interesting choice of adjective, considering it was _us_ that put Azog to the torch.”

She saw Thorin’s shoulders stiffen. Suddenly he had whirled around to fix her with a gaze that pierced right through her. Whether consciously or not, his hand had tightened on the stake. “What do you speak of?”

At once, she realized it: Thorin didn’t know. Of course he didn’t. It had never occurred to her before that the only people to have witnessed his fall had been herself, Thranduil, and a certain obnoxious human. No word would have gotten out. Suddenly, the advantage was all hers. Tauriel took a step forward, all for effect. This time no one moved to stop her. “I will repeat myself just this once: Azog is dead.”

A murmur went through the crowd. Tauriel shot Legolas a triumphant look over her shoulder. It was better than she had imagined—she had never imagined she’d have the pleasure of rubbing their victory in Thorin’s face directly.  

An older man with white hair, a thick white beard, and dark eyes stepped forward. There was a grave look about him, a weight that told her he had seen more winters than even Thorin. “Dead?” he asked in a soft voice. “How?”

Tauriel tilted her head, savoring the moment. “We killed him.” This time she ignored the ripples of shock that moved throughout the room—her eyes found Thorin’s alone. She lifted one eyebrow. “Have I impressed you yet?”

A barking laugh sounded. Over the voices steadily raising in question and celebration, that one sound caught Tauriel’s attention like no other. He head snapped to find its source, eyes scanning the crowd for the face she knew must be there. The crowd was jostled aside, and then: the first genuine smile since setting foot in this place crossed Tauriel’s face.

It had been a long time since she had seen those brown eyes, that ragged mane of hair. There was something childish in Kili’s face—or perhaps impish. Even when a frown darkened his features it was merely like a dark cloud passing over the sun, soon to dissipate. His face appeared as easily read as an open book: it was part of what made him such a great hunter. His prey trusted the openness of his face, the playful quirk in his lips. It was only now, alone with their own kind, that Tauriel could glimpse the bloodlust that lay like an undertow beneath his pleasant features. As Kili drew nearer to her with every step, she could feel it tugging her forward. She held her ground, though it was a challenge.  

“Oh, Tauriel,” he said, coming to a stop at Thorin’s side. “I’ve missed your humility.”

“Then you haven’t missed me at all,” she retorted.  

“At it already? You two are disgusting.” Fili stepped forward at Thorin’s other side, looking for all the world like Kili’s lighter counterpart. He regarded Tauriel with a more reserved expression, but one edge of his lip was twisted in amusement.

“That’s enough,” Thorin said, shooting the pair a harsh look; undoubtedly he had forbid them from speaking with her. As if it had done any good in the past. “You say Azog is dead, that you—” Thorin’s mouth twisted a bit—“killed him. Why wouldn’t we have heard of this before?”

“I wanted it to be a surprise,” Tauriel said sarcastically. Her expression soured slightly in spite of herself. “We left no survivors in the battle. And seeing as you didn’t see fit to stop by and let us know you were in the area, we had no way of telling you.”

“Well, this is cause for celebration!” Kili cried, scanning the faces around him for confirmation. “Smaug is one lieutenant short, which means our task will be—”

“Enough, Kili!” Thorin said sharply. Silence rung out in his wake. Tauriel’s announcement had done nothing to quell the open dislike in Thorin’s face. The only difference was that now it was mingled with its equal in calculation.

“And what ‘task’ might that be, I wonder?” Tauriel asked, but she directed her question to Thorin. When he did not respond, she shook her head dismissively. “I did not just come here to trade barbs and outdated information, Thorin. We came here because Azog was only the beginning. We want to finish the job.”

“We?” Thorin said. His eyes travelled to Legolas again. “I see only you and your sire’s blessedly quieter counterpart. Would Thranduil rather send his henchmen out rather than unbend his pride to come himself?”

For a moment guilt flared in Tauriel’s chest once again. She fought it down. “Thranduil does not know we are here,” she said coolly.

That caught Thorin’s interest. He leaned forward ever so slightly, eyes bright with a smile that suggested he was thinking of all the ways he could use this to Thranduil’s disadvantage. “Is that so. And why not?”

“Does that matter?” Tauriel said, eager to change the subject. She settled on the one thing she knew would set Thorin back on track. “Like I said, we’re here for a reason. We know you plan on making a second assault.”

“Are my secret counsels so easily bandied about by the rabble?” Thorin mused aloud, with another pointed glare in Kili’s direction.

“You need not lay the blame with any of your coven, Thorin.” To Tauriel’s surprise, Legolas stepped forward out of the cool silence he’d been waiting in all this time. “It was I who tracked your movements and discovered your intentions.”

Thorin fixed Legolas with his trademark glare. “Her I know. You, less so. Why would you spy on us?”

“Because I had my suspicions about what you might be planning, and deemed it folly.” Legolas met Thorin’s gaze with neither a challenge or fear. “You should know: my companion may be eager for the bloodshed to begin, but I see no way you can accomplish what you mean to do, or spare any of your lives in the attempt.”

Tauriel shot Legolas a disbelieving glance, one he chose to ignore. His face was as rigid and cold as stone.

At long last, Thorin spoke again. “Then you must not have been so adept at spying as you think,” he said. “We have an advantage that you clearly do not know of.”

“We would love to hear of it,” Legolas replied. That much, Tauriel was inclined to agree with.

Thorin’s eyes travelled between their faces, weighing, measuring. Finally, he turned to face the still crowd still gathered around them. “Kili is right,” he said. “This is good news, and cause for celebration, But,” he continued, cutting short the few whoops that fell from premature throats, “there is no time to relax—no room to let our guard down. This means that we must only work all the harder, to ensure this opportunity to scour the world of this darkness does not pass us by.” Thorin paused. “That being said, I suppose we will live to tell the tale if everyone gets double rations tonight.”

This time a cheer went up in earnest, and in the commotion that ensued Thorin stepped closer to Tauriel. He was scarcely any taller than she was, but he made up for it in the intensity of his gaze. “You may stay among us, for now,” he said quietly. “Kili and Fili will tend to you, whether I want them to or not. They will give you your answers. But know this: if I did not need every fighting body I can muster, I would cast you out of here without a second thought.”

“I wouldn’t expect any different,” Tauriel said sweetly. Thorin shook his head, and turned to wander back to the white-haired man who had spoken earlier. Like clockwork, Kili and Fili slid up on either side in his place.

“So you have to tell us how you did it,” Fili said.

“All the details, nothing left out,” Kili chimed in. “Oh! I can’t believe you would have such fun without us!”

“In good time,” Tauriel said, mentally making a note to edit out Bard’s prominent place in the tale. She would not have her valor stolen by a human.

As Kili stepped closer, his nose wrinkled. “You smell like garlic.”

“Thank Dwalin for that,” Tauriel replied. “For now, I could use a victory drink. Where did that human run off to?”

Silence settled awkwardly in the wake of her words. “Bilbo’s not for drinking,” Kili said in an odd tone.

Tauriel stared at him. Absurdly, she felt as if she had made a faux pas. A laugh bubbled out of her, more out of confusion than amusement. “What else would he be for? It’s a clever idea, I’ll admit. Keeping a living human around would keep the blood fresh.”

“You’d best not let Thorin hear you talking like that,” Fili advised.

“Why not?” Tauriel demanded, her irritation growing. Their evasiveness about the human was worming under her skin, all too familiar. In response, Fili merely tilted his head in the direction of something behind her. Tauriel turned, scanning the faces milling around the cave. She picked out Thorin almost immediately, standing apart from the crowd and talking to—

Tauriel’s jaw clenched on its own accord, the urge to bite and tear laced straight to the bone. She recognized the human’s short stature and curly hair. Thorin stared at the human with a softness that started in his eyes and crept down to his mouth. Gone was the hard, cold steel that he had worn like plate armor over his features. Tauriel knew that look. She’d seen something like it ghosting over Thranduil’s face all too often these days.

“Ah,” she said, the syllable laden with venom. “So he’s a pet, then.”

“Thorin wouldn’t much like the sound of that either,” Fili said, inspecting his nails.

“His name is Bilbo,” Kili said quickly. Tauriel was painfully aware of Legolas lingering behind her. She could practically anticipate every word of the conversation they would have about this later—him radiating quiet approval, her doing everything in her power to tear it down.

Tauriel shook her head. “I can’t believe this. Out of everyone, Thorin was the last person I would have expected to go soft.” Her eyes turned to Kili. “And you’re no better. I’d have never thought you’d accept this.”

“Well, Bilbo’s alright…” She could hear the uncertainty in Kili’s voice, his nature clashing with whatever charms the human must have worked.

It set Tauriel’s teeth on edge. Her fingers twitched, as if digging into imaginary eye sockets in that very moment. “Believe me when I say this,” she said in a voice so low it was practically a growl. “You ought to kill that human first thing, before it gets any worse.”

Before she could go into the details, Fili’s hand fastened on her arm and guided her further across the room, away from Thorin and his pet steak. “If Thorin hears you talking like that, he _will_ kill you,” Fili hissed. “Keep your voice down.”

“He’d kill his own kind over a human?” Tauriel said. That Thorin would kill her was hardly surprisingly. But for a human? Thorin may not have been cruel in his kills, but he loved the taste of blood as much as anyone should. She shook her head, closing her eyes in derision. “This is worse than I could have imagined.”

“Thorin is fond of him, yes,” Fili said coldly. “He has been for some time now. I learned to accept it as soon as I realized how invaluable Bilbo truly was—to all of us.”

Tauriel snorted, looking up once more. “What good could he possibly do?”

“He was the one who discovered the information that will lead to Smaug’s downfall,” Kili replied.

He sounded a little hurt that Tauriel would think him weak. Good. Tauriel met his eyes and made no effort to hide her contempt. “That information must come cheap, then. How did he get it?”

Fili and Kili exchanged a glance. Kili shrugged, then continued. “Well. He asked.”

“The human _asked_ Smaug?” Tauriel barked a deprecating laugh. “Your sense of humor overreaches itself.”

For a long moment silence stretched out between them. Neither Kili nor Fili so much as twitched. They weren’t joking. It was a rare occasion that Tauriel hardly welcomed.

Sighing, Tauriel massaged her temples. “Alright then. If I’m to humor this, I’ll need a drink.” She looked from Fili to Kili in an open challenge. “Is there anything at all in this miserable cave that I’m allowed to sink my teeth into?”

* * *

 

They led her across the cave, weaving around the figures still scattered throughout the room and ignoring the looks of mistrust shot their way. After a moment Tauriel realized they were heading for the truck. A strange smell hung in the air—the hint of the sweet smell of blood, but overpowered by something cold and harsh and antiseptic. There had been letters on the truck, Tauriel realized, before they had been hastily painted over. The whine of the generator grew in her ears as they stopped just outside its doors, open just a sliver to allow the fleshy grey cables snaking out of the generator to wind their way into the dark interior.

Kili stepped up to the doors and pulled them open without hesitation. A moment later he ducked inside, swallowed by a darkness that glinted like eyes and teeth. Tauriel peered after him with a vague feeling of apprehension. She saw metal, and what appeared to be shelves—the sharp smell was strongest here, so harsh it burned in her nostrils. She stepped back out of necessity, instead shifting her gaze to the truck.

She scuffed her boot against the uneven ground. The rock looked impassable for a truck's tires. “How did you get it down here?”

Kili’s voice came to her from inside the truck: “We carried it.”

Tauriel burst out laughing. Kili shot her a reproachful look over his shoulder, eyes glinting in the faint light. “I’m sorry,” Tauriel wheezed as she turned to Fili, “that’s just the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. I’m guessing it was one of your ideas?”

 “Kili’s,” said Fili.

“Figures.”

“Do you want to eat tonight or not?” Kili said. A moment later emerged with some strange, dark lumps in his hand. As he hopped down to the ground he held one up with a grin.

“We get our meals to go these days,” he said. When he held out one of his hands to her, she suddenly understood what it was: a clear-plastic bag full of blood.

Tauriel accepted it speechlessly. It felt cool beneath her fingers, the plastic slick and rubbery and smelling of disinfectant. Beneath its surface the blood sloshed sluggishly from side to side as she tilted it. It was dead blood, motionless and heatless and smelling of nothing. She looked back up at Kili in disbelief. “You drink this?”

“Sure do.” Kili hopped out of the van and handed the rest of the bags to Fili, who set off back towards the crowd to begin distributing them. “With this many of our kind in one place, there’s no way we could all hunt without drawing attention to our whereabouts. This way we have a constant food supply, and no one need ever know we were here.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Brilliant, right?”

“I’m reserving judgement.”

Legolas was inspecting the side of the truck with an expression of faint admiration on his face. “Where did you get it?” he asked.

“Blood drive at a college campus,” Fili replied. “It was surprisingly easy to steal. I don’t think they expect anyone to try and steal a truck full of blood.”

“It’s a fascinating idea,” Legolas murmured. “Drinking human blood largely without cruelty.”

“If you count all the blood transfusions that will no longer happen as cruelty-free,” Tauriel retorted. Not that she cared about the impacts of the Durins’ actions—it was the impersonal touch of it all that unsettled her most, the most intimate act reduced to something wrapped in plastic. Kili sat down on a rock, wasting no time in tearing the corner of his bag to drink the cold, viscous fluid inside. Tauriel grimaced. It seemed he had no similar qualms. But even cold and long dead, the sickly aroma of blood that rose from the open bag was enough to whet her hunger. She did as Kili had done, tearing open the bag in her hands and allowing herself no hesitation. It slid down her throat like swamp water, cold and slimy. But when it hit her stomach, warmth bloomed in its wake.

“How can you live like this?” she said, wiping the back of her mouth with her hand. Kili was too engrossed in his meal to respond. Instead, Tauriel held out the still-laden packet to Legolas.

For a long moment he studied it before shaking his head. “No. I cannot start down that path again.”

Tauriel shrugged. “Always so dramatic.” In truth she was more disappointed that she would have to finish it herself than at Legolas’s constant moral pangs. After a moment she settled down on the rock beside Kili, nursing the foul-feeling blood at his side. Legolas watched her for a moment before turning and moving away on the pretense of inspecting the cave. Tauriel had to admit, it felt very good to be back among her own kind again. Thranduil had begun to feel much too alive for her liking. Now, she felt Kili’s presence beside her like the rapid movements of a heart in its death throes. When she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye he was utterly still.

“I thought you were dead, you know.” She said it as if she were commenting on the lofty dimensions of the cave. The sentiment was just as hollow.

He was in no rush to answer her, knowing that this was a conversation that could not be hurried through. “Are you angry with me?” he said at last.

Tauriel shrugged, but did not meet his gaze. “Why would I be angry?”

Kili shot her a reproachful look. “Dancing around the subject, Tauriel? You’ve been spending too much time with your sire.”

“That I would believe.” She sighed, rubbing the strange plastic between her fingers and feeling the red liquid squelch inside. It moved away from her fingers as she pressed them together, always evasive. “No, I’m not angry.”

Kili laughed. “Well, you should be! You thought I was dead!”

Tauriel raised an eyebrow. “People die all the time. We’ve both done it once before.” Unbidden a sigh slipped past her lips. She always felt the weight of her troubles more keenly around Kili, one of the few people she could actually unburden them to. “More than anything I’m angry at Thorin, for leading you into such peril for nothing. But I can’t say it came as a shock.”

“It wasn’t for nothing,” Kili said fervently. He leaned forward, eyes gleaming in the orange-lighted gloom of the cave. “We have a chance at changing the world, at destroying the worst thing to ever befall either of our people! Surely that must mean something?”

“If I didn’t believe that was the case, I would have dragged you away with me the moment Thorin left us.” She watched his face carefully. “You still have yet to explain the intricacies of your plan. Or how this little human of yours has supposedly had a conversation with the most ancient vampire to ever exist.”

For a moment, Kili’s eyes skated away. He quieted under her gaze, growing more restrained than she often saw him. “Are you sure you want to know?” Kili asked softly. “As soon as you and your companion hear what we have to say, you’ll become as much a part of it as we are. No going back.”

“Have you ever known me to back out of a fight?”

Kili snorted. “Of course not. Which is why I want you to think very carefully if this is a fight you’re willing to commit to. Perhaps even to die for.”

There was such earnestness shining in Kili’s eyes that Tauriel had to break a smile. “I haven’t known you to be so serious about throwing yourself into danger in the past.”

“This is different. This is a chance to do something good.”

“I never knew you to be much interested in good either,” Tauriel commented. She set the now-empty blood bag on the stone beside her before meeting Kili’s eyes. “You’re well organized here. Thorin must have planned very carefully. Are you ready to tell me to what ends?”

Suddenly, Kili seized her hand. “Stay the night,” he said. “There will be plenty of time for talk, for answers. I will tell you everything until you know just as much as anyone who’s been with us from the start. But then, perhaps, there will be time for more.” There was nothing suave in his voice, no silken promises behind his words. His face showed only eagerness, the desire to share her company in whatever form it might take. That was what drew her to Kili in the first place—he could reach out without tugging her close, could draw her in with a smile just as easily as the promise of a kill. For a moment, she merely held his hand in hers, felt the roughness of callouses hardened for eternity. She gave it a squeeze—then let it fall.

“I cannot,” she murmured. “I need to be back on Thranduil’s territory before dawn. Otherwise, he will ask questions.”

Kili lowered his eyes. “Why haven’t you told him that you’re here?”

“If I did, he would try to stop me.” Her mouth twisted. “He has ever urged caution. Now I fear it has turned to cowardice. But please don’t repeat that to Thorin.”

“I won’t,” Kili said truthfully. “But could you not at least try to convince him? We need all the strength we can muster for this.”

Tauriel shook her head. “Believe me: he has other concerns now. And I would hate to deprive Thorin of his bait.” She spoke the last partially in jest, but the words fell flat from her lips. She couldn’t be sure what sort of danger she was getting herself into; she couldn’t be sure she wasn’t stepping down the exact same reckless path she had condemned the Durins for walking, bringing more danger down upon her unsuspecting allies. But her only other option was to do as Thranduil did: to run away. And she could not allow Kili to fight her battles for her, any more than she could resist the song of the kill that wavered in her blood even now.

“Thranduil will not know,” she said at last. This time, her voice was firmer. It was her who took Kili’s hand now, lacing their fingers together like pale roots entwined underground, far from the sun. “Now. Tell me what whispers in the darkness your little human supposedly heard.”


	17. Chapter 17

Someone in the house was crying.

Bard sat up in bed, sleep sliding off him like mounds of snow. From another room came the sound of wailing. The baby. He had to look after the baby.

“I’m coming, Tilda,” he mumbled, feet sliding numbly over the floor. Night after night. The baby crying. There was no one else to care for her now. The house felt unfamiliar, its walls and shapes not adding up the way they should have, but he followed the sound, let him tug him through the labyrinth. It came from the kitchen. That wasn’t right, but he went all the same. No, not the kitchen, he realized as his feet touched the linoleum. It was coming from behind the door, from somewhere outside.

He struggled up to it, moving like he was underwater, and settled his palm on the handle. Before he opened it, he looked out. It wasn’t his yard.

He leaned forward, eyes squinting against the glass and the darkness and the fog closing in around him. There were holes in the ground, four of them, one large and three smaller ones, decreasing in size like nesting dolls. Stones stood at the head of each one. He couldn’t read the names. He didn’t have to.

Slowly, so slowly, yet all at once like a mechanical contraption, three small heads rose up from those pits in the earth.

He recognized them.

god—

no—

please

Their small arms rose up, each waiting for an embrace, and the final grave yawned open for him.

“ _No_ —”

Bard jolted awake. The sound of his own voice lurching out from the depths of sleep had awakened him from the terror, which pounded in his chest, neck and temples even now. His first sensation was that he was standing up—his second that he was holding something icy cold in the palm of his hand. Blinking away the haze of sleep, he struggled to make sense of his surroundings. A door: he was standing in front of a door, with his hand resting on the knob. The metal was so cold it seemed to burn his skin.

He jolted his hand back, recoiling not from the cold but the implications of where he was, what he had been doing. The facts of his life began to form as if anew before his eyes: the shape of his kitchen swam into focus. It was late, very late. His children were in bed. If he went sprinting up the steps to throw open their doors, fell to his knees beside them and grabbed their hands to make sure they were warm—then he would need an explanation, and he could give them none. He stayed frozen where he was.

Sleepwalking again, that much he could file into a corner of his mind that was familiar if still uncomfortable—but if the dream hadn’t woken him, where would he have gone? What was calling to him from outside the safety of his house?

A prickle tugged at the skin on his spine. When he raised his eyes from the door handle to the plane of crushing darkness before him, a pale, sunken face stared back at him.

 Bard took one stumbling step backwards, a cry freezing in his throat, and the face lurched and warped along with it. It was then that the rest of Bard’s surroundings staggered out of the veil of sleep: the window of the kitchen door looked him in the face, the total absence of light outside turning its surface into a dark mirror. The face Bard had seen was his own.

The thought nearly sent a harsh laugh climbing up his throat where moments before a cry of terror had been lodged. His face was an unfamiliar thing to him now, even with the benefit of a proper mirror and a full night’s sleep. But of course, he hadn’t had one of those in some time. It was the dreams—twitching through his mind like a silent horror film. And then there were other times, when his dreams were all too real, warm and wet and seeping red.

He staggered over to the kitchen table, wavered between sitting down and pacing like a caged animal. In the end he shuffled over to the fridge to pull out a jug of apple juice and drink it without a glass. The cold liquid hit his stomach like a kick in the guts, but he could feel his mind clearing as the sugar did its work. Lately all he’d been putting into his body were the kinds of things you could have pilfered from a blood drive. Still, it did the job. His hands only trembled slightly as he screwed the cap back on and replaced it on the shelf. It wasn’t enough. He was _hungry_.

The word didn’t do justice to the feeling that twisted inside of him. It didn’t seem to come from his stomach at all sometimes; it was a wandering worm that burrowed straight through him, rooting around in his guts, poking in and out of his ribs. He ached as if with a fever, but his skin felt so cold that even the chilly drafts from the open refrigerator scarcely touched him. His eyes traveled down to the shelf where tonight’s dinner waited, a violently pink colored plate of grocery store Styrofoam, with the chunks of bloody red flesh inside pressing up against the tightly packaged cling wrap. Bard almost felt himself sinking his teeth into it, feeling the fibers tearing between his teeth. Something inside of him lurched.

He slammed the fridge door shut, heart beating erratically in his chest. God, what was wrong with him? Of course, he knew the answer to that question as quickly as it darted through his head. It had been over two months since Thranduil had been feeding on him. In that time he’d grown paler, weaker, exhausted; but he’d also felt sudden swells of impatience, of jealousy, of rage, often completely without basis. His eyes had become sensitive to sunlight weeks ago. Craving red meat was new.

Bard sank down into one of the hard kitchen chairs and ran a hand over his face. His breath escaped through his fingers in a ragged sigh. He forced himself to continue breathing, in and out, chest expanding and collapsing. These feelings were strange, unsettling. He should contact Thranduil. It had been days since they’d last seen each other, ever since the kiss.

At that thought Bard’s eyes shut, and he let out a slow breath through his nose. It had all happened so quickly—tangled together on the bathroom floor, Thranduil’s hands on him, and Bard letting it happen. Not just letting it happen: enjoying it. He couldn’t believe himself. After everything Thranduil had done to him, how was it he could he feel anything but revulsion when Thranduil touched him? Yet in the moment revulsion had been far from his mind. It had felt good, like being warm for the first time in years. Only in its aftermath had he remembered how to feel the cold.

There was a rhythm to being eaten alive. He recognized the ritual in those nights when Thranduil slipped over his threshold with a darkness at his center that demanded to be filled, and Bard became a different person, living in a different house. Those nights he moved like a stranger in his own home, leaving as little trace of himself as possible. Everything seemed to tilt, tipping him into a world where the horror of what was happening made its own kind of sense. He wasn’t used to it. After two months, he should have been. It wasn’t the pain. It wasn’t anything that Bard could put into words. All that mattered was that every time Thranduil’s lips touched Bard’s skin, he felt a rush of something so intense it was impossible to be ready for it.

No, he still hadn’t been used to it. And now something had changed.

 _You are kissing a beautiful man who wants to fuck you._ The thought had come unbidden as Thranduil’s lips pressed into his, and immediately Bard wanted to dig his fingers into it, to tear it up—mentally, he had torn the word ‘man’ into pieces, and rearranged it to resemble more of the truth. _Monster_. That was what Thranduil was, what he was trying so hard to make Bard forget. And it was working, night after night, loneliness and isolation wearing Bard down like a rock in the sea.

He was reasonably, despicably sure that if Thranduil had not kissed him—if it had just been their hands and bodies coaxing at each other from the cold, desolate edges of the bite—he would have done nothing to stop it. But Thranduil _had_ kissed him—gently, softly, with an affection that settled into Bard like the ache of a rotten tooth. It was exactly the kind of kiss he might have craved that night in the bar so long ago, when Thranduil had sat across from him as a man whose shadow was only cast outside of himself. But then had come the fear, the alley, the slice of pain across his neck, his wife’s death tossed about in mockery.

That was what had jolted Bard out of the pleasant haze Thranduil was drawing over him. The memory had saved him. He wasn’t sure what would have happened if it hadn’t. But it hadn’t happened. _Not yet_. That treacherous part of himself licked those words into his ear, and as always he shook them aside. They would be back. But not tonight.

Rousing himself, Bard stood and walked past the refrigerator, holding his breath, and made for the cold comfort of a bed he was just as likely as not to wake up in that morning.

 

* * *

 

 

The day blurred by, time made featureless by lack of sleep and the constant buzzing in the back of his mind. He got his children off to school, and tried not to feel the twist of the knife at the empty, cheerful façade that Sigrid presented him with.

The morning after their confrontation the night she had run out into the woods he’d pulled her aside after breakfast. “Sigrid,” he said sternly, “I know that things have been difficult lately—but you _cannot_ leave the house after dark without permission. You might not understand it, but I’m your father and it’s my job to keep you safe. Even when it’s not easy for either of us.”

He’d practiced that speak many times in the mirror the night before. He’d expected her to push back, to argue, to demand an explanation as to why he and Thranduil had been talking about her that night. Instead, she merely smiled a false smile and bobbed her head in blithe acceptance. “Okay, Da. I understand.”

Confusion darkened Bard’s face to a frown. “Sigrid…”

“Really. It’s fine.” The smile never faltered, not once. “I know I was out of line, in leaving the house and asking all these questions. I promise it won’t happen again.”

For a long moment Bard had struggled to find the words that might open the dialog, might give him at least the slightest chance of explaining himself. But there was nothing he could have told her that wouldn’t have been a lie. So in the end he’d worn a false smile of his own, and let her slip away.

In the days since then he’d felt as if some vast chasm had opened up between them, yawning black and bottomless. He wasn’t strong enough to leap it anymore. The words he might have used to bridge the gap, the answers he might have given her, were just as far out of reach as she was. He could say nothing, offer nothing. And as horrible as it made him feel, he was almost relieved that she had finally stopped asking questions. There was no time for anything but his and his family’s survival. Once they’d made it to safety, they could put themselves back together.

 _What safety?_ A crueler part of himself whispered as he finished closing up his shop that night. _Thranduil won’t ever die unless he’s killed, and you’ve tried that already. What makes you think that this isn’t just your life now, forever?_ Bard’s hand tightened on the ring of keys until the dig of their teeth into his skin forced the darker thoughts aside.

Outside, night had fallen again. He felt a faint prickle of unease at the dark cast of the sky, but winter drew the days to a close so early that getting home before sundown was impossible. He knew with utter certainty that he wasn’t alone.  

Even now he could feel the eyes watching him as he stood in the shadow of the garage’s doorway. The sensation didn’t frighten him like it used to. What waited for him in the darkness wasn’t unknowable anymore. He’d seen it, touched it, made it real, and it had touched him back. The building’s outer lights threw a perimeter of washed-out brilliance on the tree trunks across the road. Bard took a hesitant step towards them, steeling himself for what he’d known was coming for some time. Thranduil would have to return to him some time, after all. He could only go so long without a meal.

Bard’s eyes scraped the trees. No tall, pale-haired figure appeared. “Thranduil?” Bard’s voice sounded fragile on the bitter night air. When his eyes finally caught the flicker of movement stepping out from behind a tree, the person who started forward was not who he expected.

“Try not to be too disappointed,” Tauriel said as she came to a stop a healthy distance away. “He’s busy.”

Bard swallowed the odd dryness in his throat. In truth, he had hoped to get the inevitable confrontation with Thranduil over now. “Where is he?”

“On patrol. Don’t worry, I’m just as capable of making sure you don’t accidentally give yourself a paper cut.”

“He hasn’t fed in days,” Bard argued. “I thought, maybe tonight—”

“He’s fasted for longer,” Tauriel said unconcernedly, running the edge of her thumbnail over her fingertips rather than meeting Bard’s gaze. “When he needs to, he’ll come. All you have to do is sit tight and drink your juice.”

“I’m not a plate of leftovers,” Bard snapped. “He agreed not to cut me out of the loop. I want to help.”

“Some help you’d be,” Tauriel scoffed.

“I helped kill Azog, didn’t I?” Bard said quietly.

In an instant Tauriel’s face became as expressionless as the black eyes of a hunting shark, as if whatever spark of humanity had animated it from behind had been snuffed out. “Thranduil knows how _delicate_ you are right now. He doesn’t even trust you not to pass out and crush yourself under a car.”

“If that was true he wouldn’t have sent _you_ to look after me,” Bard snapped. _Delicate_. The word lodged in his mind like an arrow. Perhaps that was all Thranduil’s recent warmth had been—insurance against Bard’s mind breaking in two. God knew he felt on the edge of it.

Tauriel tilted her head slightly, seeming to focus her vision more firmly on Bard. “And yet he did. Perhaps he simply has no use for you any longer.”

“He doesn’t, or you don’t?” Bard took a step forward. As always, being so close to Tauriel without the protection of his house made him feel as if he were edging closer and closer to the edge of a sheer cliff. “What do you have against me, Tauriel?” A slow grin that didn’t touch his eyes spread over Bard’s face. “Surely you aren’t jealous?”

In the next moment Tauriel was much closer than she had been, her first buried in Bard’s shirt. He stumbled, held on his feet only by Tauriel’s grip on him. Her face was mere inches from his, contorted into a gargoyle snarl. “Jealous?” she hissed. Her breath smelled of a carcass in the woods, forest dampness mingled with gore. “You may be Thranduil’s favorite plaything, but you’re nothing better than a sack of meat.”

Bard was wise enough to keep his mouth shut. Tauriel’s eyes glinted, as dark green as a viper’s scales and containing as much venom. For a moment Bard wondered whether she was going to let him go, or whether she’d drag him back into the shadows of the garage and dig through his ribcage to see what Thranduil found so tempting. But her hands slackened on his shirt, and she shoved him away with a snarl of disgust.

Bard rubbed the spot on his chest where her nails had grazed him. An idea was taking shape in his mind, a quiet sense of horror mingled with understanding. “Tauriel,” he said quietly, “were you… like me, once? Did Thranduil do this to you too?”

Tauriel laughed hollowly, but in its echoes Bard could hear the rattle of something painful. “Don’t insult me. Thranduil turned me because he saw my potential.” She looked away, seemed to collect herself. “I was already dying at the time, wasting away from a fever. He saved me.” There was a quiet sense of pride in Tauriel’s voice, the honor of being chosen. Bard had never felt anything but bitterness that Thranduil had chosen him. Perhaps Tauriel’s point of view had once been the same, her own regrets chipped away decade by decade until there was nothing but admiration left. Bard could imagine it happening.

 “And after?” he said offhandedly. “You and Thranduil, did you ever…”

This time Tauriel’s laugh was full of burning scorn. She met Bard’s gaze with dismissal. “No. Thranduil was my sire, and nothing more.”

“But a relationship like that is not unheard of.”

“Do you find the idea appealing?” Tauriel sneered. “Are you hoping that after all of this, Thranduil will make you just like me? Nothing would stand between you two then. You could be happy.” Bard turned away from Tauriel’s doll-like smile. He could hear it in her voice all the same. “You know the first thing he would do then is have you kill your children, right?”

Bard’s head snapped up. He fixed Tauriel with a glare that only spread her smile wider. “I would _never_ do that.”

Tauriel snorted. Her eyes were already turning back to the forest. “You’re lucky he gives us a choice,” she said. “If it were his decision alone you’d be one of us by now.” There was no quiet mockery in her voice now—she spoke in the bitter reverberations of the truth, and that settled deep into Bard’s marrow like her grotesque threats never could. But Tauriel did not seem interested in his distress. Without further ado, she turned on her heel and strode back to the forest. She owed Bard no goodbyes. After all, he wasn’t a person to her.

“Tauriel.” She stopped at the sound of his voice, but only barely. She glanced at him over her shoulder with cold eyes. “Tell Thranduil I want to see him.”

Tauriel snorted. “You have his number. Tell him yourself.” In seconds she was nothing more than a shadow flitting among the trees. Bard turned back to his car, shaking his head. No offers of driving him home from Tauriel. She would shed no tears if Bard fainted at the wheel.

Bard’s thoughts tumbled through his head as he drove home. In quiet moments like this, always at night, Bard could _feel_ Thranduil’s hunger. In the beginning Bard had done everything he could to shut it out, to ignore every piece of Thranduil that came creeping into him across the connection that stretched between them like a spider’s web. Now, he simply let them come. It had been long enough now that the feeling churned like a maelstrom, or a pack of wild dogs all biting at each other in their madness. He felt only the edges of it, and it was enough to make his stomach twist in nausea.

Yet it wasn’t that which kept him glancing at the cellphone in his cup-holder, or reviewing the number he had memorized rather than risk saving to his contacts. It wasn’t just the shape of Tauriel’s scorn as she told him he was delicate, or the need to prove to Thranduil that he wasn’t. He wanted to talk to someone without twisting a lie between every word, to be open, to exorcize the fears that gnawed at him even now. Who else would understand what he was going through now?

Once he would torment himself with fantasies about erasing Thranduil from his life—about what would have happened if Bard had stayed home that day he caught Thranduil’s eye, if he had never accepted a ride from the stranger with the compelling eyes and a smile that made him feel noticed for the first time in years. Now he let himself wonder how things would be different if Thranduil had been human. They could have dated, awkwardly at first and then as if they had known each other for years. They could have gone for drives at night without peering nervously through the trees. They could have fucked in that alley with the shadows all around them and felt no fear but the vast crushing terror of opening up to another human being. For what was sex if not terror with intent? Love and fear had the same shape. 

Bard’s hand tightened on the steering wheel. The words Thranduil had whispered in the aftermath of their last night together had sunk into his skin. _I want to show you how different things between us can be. How good it can be._ The usual notes of soft enticement in his voice had been undercut by the way they had trembled. Bard remembered how that realization had made him feel, the power it lent him. He could see Thranduil undone. He could pull Thranduil apart himself, and it would be as easy as giving in.

He wouldn’t lie to himself and say it was the effect of Thranduil’s emotions entwining with his. Before Thranduil’s mouth had even touched his skin Bard had felt the warmth rising in his stomach as Thranduil pressed against his back, the simple physical contact slaking a yearning he’d long ignored. For years he’d been living with the loneliness, tangling it with the fibers of his life until they were indistinguishable. It was when Thranduil touched him that he felt it again, opening in him like a pit, a screaming mouth. He wanted to be touched. He craved it. The connection, the warmth and pressure—he’d been starved of it too long. And every time Thranduil fed from him, the closeness of it, the intimacy, Bard realized that he craved those nights just as much as they revolted him.

The lights of the houses on Bard’s street glittered at him through the dead tree branches as he slowly drove up to his house. He killed the engine and sat in the driver’s seat for a while longer, staring out the windshield and pulling his emotions apart like the legs off a spider. Nervousness, at what the night would bring. Indignation that Thranduil might think him helpless. Guilt at the part of himself that genuinely wanted to see Thranduil again. Even after everything that had happened, Bard found himself drawn back again. Was this what true loneliness tasted like?

In the end, practicality won. Thranduil hadn’t fed in days. That would make him dangerous. Bard had made it his business to ensure no one else was hurt on his account.

He reached for his phone.

* * *

 

Nighttime in the forest was damp, cold, and oddly hollow. The trees had scattered their leaves around their feet, and the crunch of them underfoot almost seemed to echo among the empty branches overhead. It felt as if some piece of vitality had been sucked out of the forest like marrow from a bone, leaving only the dry, bleached remains behind.

Bard made his was as quickly as he could. The messages glowed on his phone screen as he held it out against the darkness: _Where are you?_ Bard had texted without preamble. _Patrolling,_ Thranduil had replied. _Exact location,_ Bard sent back. _I need it now._ And Thranduil had sent him directions, along with a question as to what was wrong. Bard hadn’t responded. He suspected Thranduil wouldn’t have let Bard track him down if he had known that’s what Bard had planned. But Bard had pulled him behind Thranduil’s car on the side of the road, and struck out into the forest as Thranduil’s directions told him. He could neither see nor hear any sign of Thranduil, but he kept going all the same.

“What are you doing here?”

Bard stopped, turned to find the source of the voice. Thranduil was standing between two barren tree trunks, the pale grey of the moonlight seeming to pull him out of the dreary wood like the moon in a starless sky. The hollows and shadows in his eyes and cheeks did somewhat resemble craters, remnants of some ancient decimation. Bard smiled dryly. He’d known Thranduil would hear him coming long before he stood a chance of finding him first.

“Tauriel said there was work to be done,” he said lightly. He made no move to step closer. “I’m here to help.”

Thranduil stared at Bard in faint disbelief. “It isn’t safe for you to be here.”

Bard laughed without feeling. “It isn’t safe anywhere, Thranduil. Our deal didn’t involve you keeping me like a princess in a tower.” Bard shook his head. “Better than sitting awake at home all night, wondering whether Smaug’s ghouls are going to come for me first.” And of course, it wasn’t just Smaug that Bard’s thoughts would dwell on in the dark watches of the night. Even now, being so close to Thranduil was enough to send something spider-like clambering down the bones of his spine.

Thranduil sighed. “Save me from your stubbornness, Bard,” he muttered under his breath.

Bard smiled wryly. “You should know that’s a lost cause.”

Thranduil chuckled, his eyes seizing on Bard’s face with an intensity that surprised him. It was strange how being with Thranduil now eased something in him he didn’t know was strained. It was as if there was a piece of wire between them that grew tighter and tighter the further they were, and only when they were together did it slacken. Memories too fresh to be beaten down surged through him, so recent he could still feel Thranduil’s touch on his skin. Bard swallowed, allowed himself the weakness of looking away. Thranduil needed to feed tonight. Bard could see it in his pallid face, in the way his long fingers would sometimes twitch and leap. Once that fact would have been enough keep Bard as far away from Thranduil as possible. Much had changed since then. Now, rather than fear, there was a faint awkwardness that lingered between them, Bard’s rejection still stinging in the aftermath.

“What are you doing out here?” Bard asked at last, when Thranduil showed no signs of doing anything more than staring at him hungrily.

After a long moment Thranduil returned from whatever waking dreams he’d been wandering through. He sighed, turning away from Bard to stare out into the forest. Bard saw the tension in his shoulders relax. “Well. If you’re here, I suppose I might as well show you.” He turned and started to walk, feet crinkling lightly over the leaves.

Bard followed, falling into step a few paces behind. Thranduil’s silent presence ahead was enough to make the gloomy wood less intimidating. As perverse as it was, he knew he was safe while Thranduil was here. Despite his curt welcome, Bard could feel the quiet satisfaction Thranduil felt at his appearance as if he felt it himself. Sometimes, when Thranduil was near, Bard couldn’t be sure which feelings belonged to him and which he should have tried to fight. In the throes of the bite, with Thranduil’s teeth in his flesh and his emotions twined with Bard’s, there was no fighting it at all.

It was for that reason that Bard knew he could speak to Thranduil like no one else. It wasn’t just the absence of lies—Thranduil had tasted a truth inside of himself that Bard would never be able to express in words. That was what made him so dangerous. Yet it was also possibly the only reason Thranduil could help him.

Bard cleared his throat. “I’ve been sleepwalking again.” His voice was quiet.

Thranduil nodded slowly, his hair shifting in the moonlight. “A common side-effect.”

Bard chuckled bitterly to himself. “Of course. As are the strange dreams, and the exhaustion, and the cold I can never seem to shake.”

Thranduil glanced back at him, faintly veiled interest written on his face. “And what do you dream of, Bard?”

Bard swallowed drily. His dreams were grisly as often as not, the memory of them enough to put a cold sweat on his brow in the heat of the day. But other times… other times were different. He would open his eyes in bed, and broad daylight would be streaming through the open window. It was warm. Safe. He rose out of bed feeling better than he had in weeks, months even. But something always drove him on, like his name being called from another room, laden with fondness. It tugged him out of his room and down the hall, all the way to the kitchen door—the blinds were open, letting the golden sunlight in, and just outside he could hear a voice calling his name. He knew, the way you always knew in a dream, that the voice was Thranduil’s. _Let me in Bard. Let me in._

Those dreams were the worst of all.

He drove the dream-thoughts from his mind as he realized Thranduil was still waiting for an answer. He merely shook his head, and looked away. “Nothing good.”

The silence yawned between them, punctuated only by the crunch of leaves beneath their feet. Thranduil’s voice, when it came, was as soft as it had been that night. “We could stop.”

“ _No_.” The word tore out of him like a hook from a fish’s lip. Bard’s hands clenched at his sides. He didn’t need to look to see that Thranduil would wear a faint smile on his lips, that he had known Bard’s choice before Bard had made it.  Whatever Bard suffered from being drained again and again, it was nothing compared to stain of a stranger’s blood on his hands.

Just ahead of him, Thranduil came to a stop. “We’re here,” he said, gesturing at what appeared to be a small mound in the earth. Bard stared at it, uncomprehending, until Thranduil motioned for him to walk around it. Against the dim light of the moon it was difficult to make much out: Bard saw it had not been naturally made, and that there was a small hole big enough for a man to squeeze through if he went on his belly like a snake.

He looked up at Thranduil, met his eyes. “What is it?”

“A contingency plan,” Thranduil said simply. “One of the safest ways to kill a vampire is to destroy all its lairs. Without a safe place to weather the day, it will burn and die.” He stepped forward, nudging the mound with his toe. “Tauriel and I have made several mounds like this throughout the forest. Should Smaug attempt to drive us out, we will have many backups.”

“Smart,” Bard said without mockery. “Weapons here, too?”

Thranduil nodded. “I’ve been distributing them from my car tonight.” He hesitated. “I still have three more to visit. You may accompany me, if you wish.”

Bard was quiet for a while. “Funny. I assumed I’d have to strong-arm you into taking me along.”

Thranduil chuckled. “I think we’re a fair match for each other. Between my starvation and your blood loss, we might just be even.”

A wry smile twisted Bard’s lips, but it withered quickly enough. Perhaps Thranduil hadn’t meant to remind him of the unspoken tension between them, but Bard knew he could not ignore it forever. For a moment it was as if he could see the pattern of scars spread out over his chest. They were all hidden easily enough, but Bard never forgot they were there. He wore them like brands of ownership. Now he looked up into Thranduil’s eyes, resisting the impulse to let his own gaze skitter away.

In truth, what he felt every time was terrifying. Feelings that were not his own, flickering over his consciousness like the touch of a moth in the darkness, like bats swooping inches from his face. As the darkness and the fire would grow with every heartbeat (and somewhere far away Thranduil would press harder to his neck, a faint moan rattling at the back of his throat) Bard would feel a sudden swell of possessiveness, of cruel satisfaction—of lust. He had felt that more than most, darting away and returning, mingling with the desire he couldn’t stop himself from feeling, Thranduil’s feelings could touch him like a single piano key, the note vibrating the strings and waiting for the continuation that never came. Bard was wracked by it. He rose to meet it. He writhed away. He embraced it and wouldn’t let go, he did everything, anything, not to feel it.

Beneath it was always the hunger. It lived in the cold (and it was alive, and Bard could feel how alive it was just by looking into Thranduil’s eyes) and it wanted him, wanted him the same way Thranduil wanted him but not for the same purpose. Thranduil wanted to consume him, but leave just enough left to scrape up and use again and again. The hunger wanted to destroy him utterly, and would enjoy doing so.

That was what he faced now, in the dark wood with Thranduil’s hunger eddying against him. But Bard was coming to understand that facing it was all he could do anymore. There was nowhere to run. Perhaps he didn’t want to.

“You’re right,” Bard said at last. “There’s no sense in both of us being weak. You haven’t fed in some time,” he finished awkwardly. When Thranduil did not respond, he soldiered ahead. “We could do it here, if you like.”

Thranduil laughed, a single dry click, and looked away. “And how am I to get to your skin, without you freezing to death in this weather?”

“The car, then,” Bard said. “It would be warmer. Less exposed.”

He could practically see Thranduil’s thoughts flitting over the surface of his eyes. Hunger at the pleasant surprise of Bard seeking him out, Bard offering himself so near that Thranduil could have him how he liked in a matter of minutes. It was almost a relief, the thought that they need not go trudging through the hallways of that house again, leading Thranduil to the pale fluorescence of the bathroom like a doctor guiding a patient to an examination room. 

He’d let it happen in the bed, once. Afterwards Bard had come back to himself with Thranduil lying at his back, a gentle weight on the bed beside him. Half-asleep, Bard had felt warm fingers brush over his cheek, a faint voice murmuring something into his ear. In times like those he could trick himself. Make himself forget what Thranduil was, what he wanted. In those moments he could ignore the animal movements, the dark hunger behind his eyes. Bard could pretend he was human, and that the night held nothing more threatening than a failed joke, an awkward silence. Such fantasies eased the loneliness in his heart like jagged ice melting in warm water. Such moments never lasted long. Their aftertaste was always bitter and embarrassing.

Waking up with Thranduil beside him had been like the weekend mornings spent in half-sleep when his wife was still alive. He’d stayed in bed with her for hours, dipping in and out of sleep like boats skimming over the waves, waking to her heartbeat beside him. It was the first time he had woken up beside another person since then. It had felt so good, so good it hurt.

It was the bathroom from then on. He couldn’t let himself sink into that golden happiness, not if it was Thranduil dragging him to the bottom.

During the silence between them the hunger in Thranduil’s eyes had passed, as if he could see Bard’s thoughts just as clearly. “No,” he said at last. “Not tonight.”

Confusion yanked Bard in a dozen separate directions. “Thranduil…”

But Thranduil was turning away. Bard had thought he’d be eager to feed again, to wash the taste of their last attempt from his mouth. He hadn’t considered that Thranduil could actually be stung by rejection. After all, he had scarcely let rejection stop him in the past.

At long last, Thranduil spoke. “Tomorrow,” he said haggardly. “We’ll do it tomorrow. However you like. Just not right now.”

Bard considered arguing. He couldn’t summon the energy. So instead he just nodded, silent, and tried to ignore the relief and disappointment that swirled indistinguishable in his stomach.

He and Thranduil were halfway back to the car when Thranduil stopped dead. “Someone out there,” he said. There was no inherent danger in his tone, but Bard could feel it. The spring-loaded tension of his muscles might as well have been Bard’s.

“Who is it?” Bard said “One of Smaug’s?”

Thranduil shook his head, his eyes focused in the distance on something Bard couldn’t see. “Human,” he murmured. He moved forward, sliding like the shadow of clouds moving over the moon. Bard followed as quickly as he was able, his nerves leaping under his skin.

Before long the road came in sight, and with it their cars. But a third vehicle had appeared now, and Bard repressed a curse at the flash of red and blue lights that pattered the tree trunks around them.

“Did they follow you here?” Thranduil murmured, crouched in the shadows at Bard’s side.

“I have no idea,” Bard replied. He could see the police officer, though he didn’t recognize their face, walking around the two cars with his flashlight in hand. He seemed more puzzled than suspicious. “Maybe he just stumbled across us. Two empty cars by the road in the middle of nowhere doesn’t exactly bode well.”

Slowly, the officer circled Bard’s car, shining his flashlight through the windows as he peered inside. He seemed to find nothing noteworthy, for he began to step towards Thranduil’s car instead. At once, Bard felt Thranduil go rigid.

“We can’t let him look in my car,” Thranduil said.

Bard glanced at him sidelong. “Why not?”

“Because all the weapons I was going to install in our hideouts are currently spread over the back seat in plain view.”

The series of observations about Thranduil’s intelligence currently jockeying for position on Bard’s tongue were cut short by the other man quickly straightening up. Bard didn’t like the look of liquid tension in his muscles, nor the sharpness of his face. “What are you doing?” Bard hissed.

Thranduil did not spare him a glance. “Stopping him,” he said shortly. He took a step forward.

“No!” Bard hissed, yanking him back. “We don’t have to hurt him. Just let me handle this, okay?”

“Handle this _how_?” Thranduil retorted, but Bard’s back was to him already. He stepped through the trees as quietly as he could, until he had stepped out onto the road without the other man noticing. The cop was currently inspecting the outside of Thranduil’s car, squinting at the license plate and pulling out a pad of paper. Bard’s heart leapt into his throat. If they knew Thranduil’s plate number, who knew what all they could connect that vehicle to?

“Howdy!” Bard called out with false cheer. The policeman jumped, the beam of his flashlight jumping to Bard’s face and jabbing him right in the eyes. Bard raised a hand against it, his smile faltering.

“Are you the owner of one of these vehicles?” the officer said. He sounded jumpy. Bard could hardly blame him.

“I am,” Bard replied. He was glad he didn’t recognize the policeman; perhaps he stood a chance at worming out of this without consequences. Bard took a breath, preparing the lie. “My friend and I were just—”

And then, like lightening Thranduil was on him, a bolt of pale motion appearing behind him faster than Bard could believe. The policeman didn’t see anything before he had fallen bonelessly to the asphalt.

“What did you do?” Bard cried, rushing forward even as Thranduil stooped beside the body. Two pale fingers touched the officer’s neck. It took Bard a moment to realize Thranduil was feeling for a pulse.

“Alive,” Thranduil decided. He didn’t straighten. Instead he remained crouched at the man’s side, staring down at him with an expression that suggested the end to thoughtfulness, a question that had already been answered.

“What should we do with him?” Bard asked. He wasn’t sure why he was afraid of the answer.

“I have an idea.” Thranduil looked up at him blankly. “Do you mind?” the words were spoken flatly. Thranduil’s face, drawn and paler even than usual, was incapable of expressing anything more than exhaustion with a hint of hunger, of blame.

Bard looked at him, his question wordless. Thranduil only gestured to the prone form before them in response. “He’s unconscious. He won’t remember anything.”

“What?” Bard spoke even though the question was as useless as a broken limb. He knew exactly what Thranduil was saying, but the one word he had spoken filled the void where outrange and disgust had yet to develop.

Thranduil sighed. There was a nervous, twitchy edge to it. “I need more, Bard. You’re weakening, and I’m weakening, and you know what happens when we’re weak. Do you want to be strong enough to defend your family when the time comes? Because I doubt that either of us will have an opportunity like this again.”

Instead of answering, Bard turned and walked a few paces away. And then he stopped, and turned back, because if this happened it would only be with his approval. He knew that now. He could just as easily tell Thranduil no, and Thranduil would drive away without question rather than breaking the terms of their agreement. But his words tapped an insistent rhythm on the inside of Bard’s head, one that was beginning to signal the truth. Bard _was_ tired. He wasn’t sure how much more he could take, or more accurately how much more he could give. Neither he nor Thranduil were good to anyone half-dead. And the man wouldn’t remember anything…

Bard’s mouth twisted. Thranduil had not stopped watching him this whole time. “This isn’t right,” Bard said. It wasn’t a denial.

“It won’t hurt him, Bard,” Thranduil said softly. “You know I’m capable of that.”

Bard looked down at the asphalt under his feet. He couldn’t meet Thranduil’s eyes as he nodded his assent. Almost immediately he heard Thranduil move, heard the scrape of something limp against the ground. In spite of himself, Bard looked up. As easily as if the man’s body were filled with straw, Thranduil had lifted him and pulled him into his lap, his limp legs spread out before him, his head lolling to the side. Thranduil was not looking at Bard now—it was as if Bard did not exist. His pale fingers lifted to tilt the man’s head to the other side, exposing the line of his neck. Thranduil did not bite, not immediately. He touched the skin first, hesitantly, then began to stroke the man’s hair as if soothing him. He lowered his mouth to the skin there, and Bard could watch no more.

He turned around, stared at the woods, stared at the cars that leapt up in the flashes of red and blue from the police lights even now. At his back, the sounds he heard were enough to make him want to cover his ears with his palms, or perhaps to dig his fingers in so far he would never hear again. God, he could feel it—the heat surging through him like a blush rising under his skin, the rich, indolent sensation of Thranduil feeding. Bard ran a hand over his face and felt his skin prickle with electricity. Was this his punishment, for what had almost happened between them the last time Thranduil had fed? Bard wasn’t sure which was worse: the fact that he was allowing this to happen to someone other than him, or the fact that, unbelievably, part of him _wanted_ it to be him. He struggled to control his breathing, to ignore the riot of Thranduil’s emotions bleeding into him.

It was the moan that made him look.

The man’s eyes were closed. That was the first thing Bard saw, the most important thing—but his mouth was open, ever so slightly, and even under the weight of unconsciousness his expression was twisted into something that could have been agony or bliss. Bard stared at his face a long time, unable to look away—and the sucking sounds continued, wet and hungry and desperate, and at long last Bard allowed himself to see Thranduil’s face.

He was bent closer over the officer’s neck, and if the man he fed from looked pained then Thranduil was in agony, and if he felt pleasure than Thranduil was in rapture. Bard couldn’t remember ever seeing his face like that. His hands locked around the man’s body, holding him not as he might pin down a struggling animal but as a lover might turn a tender embrace into a fierce one. Light was thrown over their faces in flashes: red flash, Thranduil’s hunger. Blue flash, the man’s. As Bard watched, spellbound with horrified fascination, Thranduil’s face contorted—and a moment later he pulled away, mouth smeared with red, and took a deep, shaky breath of the night air into his lungs. His eyes did not open. Not even when he turned back to the wound gently seeping blood down the man’s neck, and began to lick the flesh clean, to lick the scar closed. The man moaned again as he did, an unconscious sound, yet unshakable in its implications.

Bard felt a surge of something hot and keening fly into his chest like a barb. This time when he turned away, he did not look back until he heard the rustle of movement as Thranduil stood up. When he looked, Thranduil had the officer slung over his shoulder, his neck bare except for a small and barely noticeable scar. He could have cut himself shaving a month ago, and only noticed it now. Without comment, Thranduil carried the limp form back to the police car and deposited it in the driver’s seat. After leaning in for a few moments, the flashing red and blue lights cut out, leaving only the glow of the headlights. The world snapped back into harsh reality. The door slammed. Everything Bard had seen and felt was now quarantined behind it.

Thranduil stepped forward, licking his lips like a cat after eating a bird. Bard could scarcely believe the change that had been worked in him, his gaunt face turned bright and healthy again, the dullness in his eyes completely lifted. He looked at Bard with a clarity that cut through the haze in Bard’s mind. Bard could feel his presence like the unrelenting desert sun.

“I took more than I might have from you,” he said simply. “Likely he’ll wake up and think he fell asleep in his car. He will attribute it and the side effects to illness. In time, he’ll be perfectly fine.”

“Good,” Bard said, the word utterly devoid of feeling. Thranduil stared at him, reserving comment, but his eyes said it all. _Are you disgusted by me?_ they asked. _Is it awful to see what’s been done to you, again and again? Is it unbearable to know how plainly your desires are written on your face each time?_

Bard turned away under the force of his scrutiny. He didn’t know why his hands were shaking, only that he needed them to be on the steering wheel, bringing him away from this place.  

“You should go home, Bard.” Thranduil’s voice had reclaimed its melodious quality, ringing softly over the distance between them. “Now that I’ve fed, it’s you that needs to rest.”

Half an hour ago Bard would have argued, would have demanded his place in the preparations. Now, he could do little more than nod. He walked back to his car without a goodbye, and without looking back. It hardly mattered. Thranduil would come for him soon enough.

The drive home went quickly, and Bard could not have described a single moment of it. When he stepped through the doorway, his feet as heavy as if it had been his blood Thranduil had leeched, he saw Bain and Tilda poke their heads into the hallway from the living room. Whatever cheery greeting had been on their lips faded with one look at him.

“Da?” Bain asked, concern coloring his voice grey as Bard kicked off his shoes. “Is everything okay?”

“It’s fine,” Bard said. “I’m just tired.” It was the truest thing he had said to his children in some time. He could scarcely summon the effort to meet their eyes as he trooped past, tousling Tilda’s hair with a hand that hardly felt it. He stepped into his bedroom without a word, closing the door behind him and locking it firmly. It wouldn’t matter. He had been unlocking it in his sleep for weeks.

The bed awaited. He craved the oblivion it promised, even knowing it was a lie: the dreams waited on the other side of his pillow, ready to creep in and send him creeping out. He shuffled to the bathroom instead.

For a while he stood in the doorway, staring at the harshly illuminated tiles and the ugly pale grey tub, the towels whose colors had washed away to a dull green. Thranduil had stood there, just a handful of nights ago. He had stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Bard from behind, and for just a moment Bard had let himself enjoy it.

Bard turned to the mirror. His face stared back at him with a mildly shocked expression, as if he had just heard himself say something unexpected without knowing that he had said it. It was as if the sunken, white-grey cast of Thranduil’s face had somehow been imprinted on his own, and it settled over him like a thin white film. Bard couldn’t remember what his real face looked like. God, he was tired. He was lonely. He was angry and he wouldn’t name why.

He braced his hands on the sink and leaned forward, until his face and his reflection were a hands-breadth apart. He tried to remember what the police officer’s face had looked like as Thranduil lapped at the blood on his neck. He tried to imagine his own face in the same throes of feeling, his lips parted slightly just so, his brow creased in concentration over something that defied imagining. Thranduil’s face swam back to him, the dangerous currents of something barely hidden under an expression. Did Thranduil wear the same face as he sucked the blood from Bard’s veins? Did it matter who he drank from at all? Bard tried to picture it, even though it made his stomach twist deeper into his guts—he tried to see himself in Thranduil’s arms as he had been so many times, tried to imagine how their faces would contort with the power that tore through them both, tried to step back and watch Thranduil eat him as if he were watching a lion being fed at the zoo. He saw their faces contorted with ecstasy. His reflection remained blank, empty, a stomach wracked with dull hunger.

Bard turned the bathroom light off, and the face in the mirror became nothing more than a shadow.

 


	18. Chapter 18

The house’s lights were all turned off, but inside it was not dark. Where the blinds were open, moonlight streamed through the window panes and turned it into an aquarium of cold light. From his place at the tree line, Thranduil could see the particles of dust drifting through the moon beams like silt settling on the ocean floor. It was a far-away kind of sight, and a cold one.

How many times had he stood on the edge of this forest and watched those windows, like a starving dog outside a butcher’s shop? And yet, he wasn’t hungry now. The blood of a stranger coursed through his veins for the first time since he and Bard had struck their deal. No longer was Bard woven into him so tightly he could scarcely tell where he himself ended and the human began. To feel that life so close was to hold frostbitten hands under warm water until they thawed; to press an icy cloth to a fever he had not known was burning inside of him. Excruciating. Yet not without a sort of pleasure.

Now, at last, Thranduil was free. And yet, for that freedom, he still stood on the forest’s edge and watched a silent house sleep. As the moonlight wheeled in the sky above and the shadows warped and bulged in its wake, it almost seemed the house was drifting over the grass, ethereal, a thing made of dreams.

And yet, the house was not asleep.

Thranduil watched with keen interest as a shadow moved past one of the unblinded windows on the first floor. The lights were off—as Thranduil watched the figure shuffled through another spot of moonlight, its movements slow and swaying like something deep underwater, far from the light. Thranduil stepped down from his place at the wood’s edge and slid through the night on quick and silent feet, heading for the same door the figure inside was moving towards.

When he opened it, Bard had made it to the kitchen. He stood in the doorway, leaning on it slightly, and his eyes were closed. At the sound of the door opening he started forward again, head lolling on his neck as he moved. Thranduil closed the door behind himself, locked it, and took Bard by the shoulders before the sleepwalking man could stumble out into the night. Sleepwalking again. The connection might have slackened, but Thranduil could feel it twitch between them even now. Not gone. It would take many more nights of strange blood to wash Bard out of his system. And even then, Thranduil had his doubts as to whether it’s touch would ever truly be gone. The thought didn’t bridle like it should have.

Thranduil had intended to wake Bard then and there, but something held him back. He found himself staring at the man instead, drinking him in without the cold wall of Bard’s own eyes pushing him back. He had scarcely realized before how skillfully Bard warded him off with his gaze. One cold look could ward Thranduil off as effectively as the threshold of an unwelcome doorway. But now Bard’s face was slack, and it struck Thranduil then how different he looked, that the face Thranduil knew was stretched thin and wan with tension even when it was creased with a weak smile. The muscles under his hands did not twitch like a plucked string. He knew Bard had been upset the last time they were together—seeing Thranduil feed from someone else seemed to have bothered him more than expected. Thranduil had thought their next meeting would be tinted by the confusion, the disgust, the betrayal that had flitted over Bard’s face at their last parting. There was none of that now.

 _It is only because he does not know you are here_. The voice gnawed its way into Thranduil’s brain, as invasive as the human emotions which had filtered into his mind—but this time, the doubt was his own. He pushed it away. His shoulders still rested on Bard’s shoulders, steadying him. Bard made no move to pull back, or even to continue his nightly amblings. He merely stood there, suspended, pliant under Thranduil’s hands. He was… soft. Appealing.

In a moment, Thranduil would wake him. _But first_.

Slowly, like a dancer experimenting with a new step, Thranduil stepped forward to let his arms slip around Bard’s shoulders and pull the man into an embrace. Bard smelled like sleep, and his only reaction was to lean slightly into Thranduil’s body, the impulse of a sleeper to press to something solid. Thranduil could _feel_ the utter lack of tension in the body he held. Bard was always on alert when Thranduil was near, even during their best moments—it was strange how empty he felt in sleep.

Thranduil inspected his own thoughts, testing them out like flavors of wine on his tongue. This was pleasant. There was a certain satisfaction to feeling the man tense, to glimpse the fear in his eyes and know that Thranduil had put it there. That was one sort of power. This was different. He… liked the fact that Bard wasn’t pulling away. He rested his forehead on Bard’s shoulder, letting himself imagine. He wanted this. Not _this_ ¸ stealing moments from Bard’s unconscious form. He wanted Bard to give himself over willingly, for those jangling instincts of terror Thranduil had crafted so carefully to then fall away at his command. He knew that a moment like this was something Bard was literally incapable of giving him—he’d worked too hard on honing the man’s fear for that. Perhaps that had been a mistake.

A wave of self-disgust welled up from some deep forgotten pit within himself. He was suddenly aware of how pathetic he seemed—stealing moments from a walking corpse and pretending they were so much more. He pulled away quickly, leaving Bard swaying in the grip of deep sleep. His neck had fallen to the side, his hair sticking to it in whorls. Unbidden, a surge of hot, dry hunger rose in Thranduil’s throat. In that moment he could see his own actions as clearly as if they were already memories. He will come again tomorrow night, and take that neck in his hands—and he will take more than he might have intended to take, and still it will not be enough.

It crossed his mind that the solution was simple. Thranduil ought to kill the man and be done with it. It was easy enough to entertain the fantasy of draining him, Bard’s realization that Thranduil was not going to stop, his struggles already weak, and then fading into stillness. Raising a hand to Bard’s cheek, he tilted the man’s head to look into his face once more. He saw Bard in the peaceful grip of sleep—now he imagined him dead. What would it be like to look on that face, and know the eyes would never open again? To know that no laugh would ever slip past those lips, no frown would ever crease the brow? The thought was a strangely hollow one. With a sudden, sharp pain, Thranduil realized the truth: he couldn’t kill Bard. Not anymore.

How had he allowed himself to tumble so deeply into his own well?

Anger curdled in his stomach, turning the cold blood there unpalatable. Thranduil turned on his heel, leaving the false warmth and comfort behind, and strode over to the light switch on the kitchen wall. He flipped it on, chasing the delicate moonlight back out the windows and replacing it with harsh fluorescence. Bard swayed on his feet, a distant frown growing on his face. Thranduil had considered leading the man back to bed, laying him down and leaving him to gather what remaining sleep he could. But such tenderness was beyond him now.

“Wake up, Bard,” Thranduil snapped, his voice harsh and loud.

At the sound of his voice Bard immediately jolted awake, eyes going wide and then immediately squinting against the harsh light. He raised a hand against it, eyes scanning the room myopically until they settled on Thranduil. He noted that despite being shaken so rudely from sleep, the man did not seem afraid.

“Thranduil?” he mumbled with a thick tongue. “What’re you…”

“I was keeping watch on the house,” Thranduil said coolly. “You were about to walk right out into the woods.”

Bard dragged his hands over his face with a groan, slowly shaking his head. When he looked up at Thranduil at last, he looked exhausted. “Thank you.”

The sentiment was surprising. It was also the last thing Thranduil needed. He knew well that Bard would not be thanking him if the man knew Thranduil had stolen an embrace from him mere minutes before. Guilt rose unbidden. Where once Bard’s words might have set a triumphant smile on Thranduil’s lips, now they merely twisted something painful inside of him. He looked away rather than respond, turning to inspect the windows and the silent woods beyond. “Was it a nightmare?”

Bard was quiet for a long moment. When Thranduil turned around in askance, the man slowly shook his head.

Thranduil raised his eyebrows ever so slightly, turning to face him in full. “No? Then what was it?”

Rather than answering, Bard sank down into a chair at the kitchen table and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “You were there,” he said. It was interesting to watch Bard’s expression change as consciousness crept over him like whorls of frost, turning his face hard and cold inch by inch as he remembered who he was speaking to. By the time Bard met his eyes again, the twisted emotions Thranduil had seen in them the night before had returned in full. Thranduil told himself that he didn’t care. “I don’t remember much else. Only a feeling of… happiness. Safety.” Bard looked back up at Thranduil with a bitter smile. “The irony.”

Thranduil stared at Bard, keeping his expression as blank and unfeeling as the darkness pressing in from outside. He was suddenly intensely, furiously grateful for the police officer’s blood coursing through his veins. Without it, Bard might have felt the frustration, the anger, the anguish that rolled through him in waves. He’d been ready to tell Bard he’d felt that same sense of comfort too. But of course, the man wanted no comfort that he could offer.

When Thranduil spoke at last, his voice was clipped. “Yes. That is ironic.” He turned sharply on his heel, striding for the door and unlocking it with a short, harsh movement. “Good night, Bard,” he said coldly. “Don’t go walking anymore tonight. I won’t be here to stop you.”

Without waiting for the man to reply he stepped out into the frigid night air, welcome for the way it burned the lingering warmth off his skin.

 

* * *

 

He found Tauriel at the storage unit, drawn to the familiar sense of his own kind like a snake to the sunlight. There was no twist in his gut when he felt her at the edge of his consciousness, no vicious stabs of pain when she was near. She was his, and of him. They, at least, could stand together without bitter smiles or regret.

Thranduil walked up to only the sliding metal door with a faint light coming from under it in the night. He pulled it open with a clatter of metal, noting with mild amusement the surprise on Tauriel’s face.

“Thranduil,” she said. “I didn’t expect you.”

He stepped inside and closed the door behind him, sealing them in the weak light of the yellowed bulb hanging from the ceiling. Automatically Thranduil found his eyes following the memories that felt like so long ago, even in the vast spectrum of his experience. Here Bard had stood in the aftermath of the battle, fear in his eyes but also resolution. Here Thranduil had sat, weak with his wounds and half-mad with hunger, on the verge of tearing Bard’s throat out and feeling no remorse. And here—here was where Bard had offered up his blood for the first time, reluctantly but willingly. Thranduil could almost feel the swell of wild, possessive joy that had flooded him even before his lips touched Bard’s skin. At first, he had thought it felt like victory. But that wasn’t right—it had felt more precious than that, like something fleeting and delicate entrusted to him. Thranduil was not accustomed to savoring fragile things. He usually preferred to devour them whole.

Shaking his head, Thranduil realized he was doing the one thing he had sought Tauriel out to avoid—thinking about Bard. Casting such thoughts from his mind, he focused on Tauriel. What he saw did not make immediate sense. She was taking weapons from the cache in this storage unit and loading them into a duffel bag, stakes and long knives clanking together. As soon as Thranduil opened the door she had frozen. A glint of nervousness shone in her eyes. The mess around her suggested that whatever she had been doing, it had been in haste. 

“What are you doing?” he said curiously.

Tauriel blinked. “I had some ideas about re-distributing our supplies,” she said with a wary note in her voice. “I thought it might be wise to keep a cache of weapons near one of the roads leaving town.”

“And you didn’t think to ask me?”

At that, Tauriel smirked without any true amusement. “I would have—but you seemed occupied.”

Thranduil’s teeth gritted in spite of himself. It was true. He had been distracted lately, his thoughts bent on Bard whenever his mind would wander. He should have been focusing on shoring up their defenses, keeping an eye on the woods and waiting for the storm to hit. Perhaps defeating Azog had made him careless; it had allowed the chance that Smaug would never discover them, and now Thranduil was clinging to that hope with all of his might. He didn’t want things to change. If he only had time—had the years it would take him to slowly warm Bard to him again, to coax the man to stand at his side and look on him with more than antipathy. But Thranduil had no way of knowing whether Smaug would discover them—or whether he already had. If that happened, Thranduil would have to take what he could get, draining Bard hurriedly and killing his children out of mercy.

At least, that had been the original plan. It seemed his stomach for killing Bard was not as strong as he’d thought it was. He’d poured too much of himself into the man, and allowed too much of Bard to seep back into him.

Thranduil turned to one of the open boxes, letting his fingers trail over the point of a stake there. “What would you have me do with him, Tauriel?” he murmured, half to himself.

From Tauriel behind him came a long silence. “I think you know what I would suggest,” she said slowly. “He’s a distraction. He’s a weak spot. He’s… irritating. The best thing to do is to drink him however you like best, and leave this town without looking back. Blood is the only good thing he has left to offer you.”

“Is it?” Thranduil weighed the stake in his hand. It felt so light, so fragile. He could have snapped it between his hands. Yet with the right application of pressure and direction, it could bring the long centuries of his life to an end just as easily. “He brings me some happiness,” Thranduil said quietly, turning to meet Tauriel’s gaze frankly. “Is that not good?”

“It’s the wrong sort of happiness. We left it behind when we died. All we have is the joy of the kill.”

“And if that isn’t enough for me anymore?” Thranduil did not wait for a response. He knew what she was thinking: that if the long years of his life had finally dulled him, there was nothing left to do but die. Perhaps she was right. But the lingering thrum of Bard’s blood in his veins made him think perhaps something other than killing could make him feel alive.

He stepped forward to toss the stake into the open duffel bag Tauriel knelt in front of. “I trust your judgement,” he said. “If you believe we should distribute our weapons even more, then I will agree. Do not worry about coming to me for permission in the future.” He hesitated. Perhaps it was the heat of blood in his veins, the sting of Bard’s presence, but whatever it was pushed him to speak. “You’re a skilled hunter. I am… proud of you. Never doubt that, no matter what happens.”

Tauriel looked up at him with an expression as if he’d spat at her feet—shocked, pained, almost disbelieving. It reminded him too much of the expression Bard had worn not so long ago. He turned away, hardening his heart, and stepped up to the door once again.

“Thranduil—” The urgency in Tauriel’s voice made him stop and look at her again. Her hands were clenched in the fabric of the duffel bag, muscles tense and rigid. She looked away, staring at the weapons before her with something that could have been shame. “There’s something I should tell you.”

Thranduil waited for her to gather her words, a prickle of unease stirring the back of his neck. Tauriel was never shy with her opinions. From the pained look on her face, this was one thing she was not eager to share. But Thranduil would give her the time she needed to find the words, would be patient with her, would be kind—

His cellphone gave a single chime. Automatically his hand slipped into his pocket to retrieve it and flip it open. He read the message: _Couldn’t sleep. Been working on something instead. Meet me @ garage tomorrow night._

“Who is it?” Tauriel’s voice was flat, emotionless. She knew the answer. She just wanted Thranduil to say it.

“He says he’s been working on something,” Thranduil said, slipping the phone back into his pocket with an odd sense of guilt. “I think he wishes to feel useful.”

“That must be difficult for him, considering he’s little more than a glorified juice box,” Tauriel snapped.

The only thing that stopped the sharp reprimand on Thranduil’s tongue was the memory of Tauriel’s distress from only moments before. He let out his anger in a sigh instead, groping back for the moment they’d shared before. “There was something you wanted to tell me?”

Tauriel’s hands tightened on the bag, then slowly, inevitably, relaxed. “Yes,” she said at last, and there was none of the vulnerability that had been there before. “I plan to go on patrol tomorrow night, further than usual. I might not be back until near dawn. I may even pass the day elsewhere.”

“Very well,” Thranduil said shortly. Whatever Tauriel had meant to say, it seems it would have to wait. Already Thranduil’s mind was turning over Bard’s text, wondering what he would find waiting at the garage tomorrow night. There would be time for Tauriel to find the words she needed. For now, Thranduil needed time to think.

He left her there, and thought no more about the bag of weapons and Tauriel’s uncharacteristic secrecy. Inevitably, his thoughts dwelled only on Bard.

 

* * *

 

As soon as he awoke to darkness outside the window panes, he rose and left his apartment. Just as Tauriel had warned, he could sense no sign of her anywhere in his territory. In truth he was not sure he would have noticed if she hadn’t told him. He had other concerns.

He didn’t go straight to Bard’s garage, as tempting as the prospect was; he made a quick stop along the way, which resulted in a brown-wrapped parcel tucked between the two seats as Thranduil drove. A peace offering. Bard was ever wary of Thranduil’s gifts, but this once Thranduil wanted to show him that he could be trusted.

He pulled up outside of the garage. The lights were on inside, but as Thranduil stepped inside he could immediately tell Bard was not here. His eyes were drawn to the back door, beyond which waited the field of cars quietly rusting in the grass. He thought he could hear strange noises coming from that direction, the _thunk_ of something hitting metal and twang of vibrations in the air. He left the brown paper parcel on a table in the garage and followed the sound.

Floodlights from the top of the garage painted rows of old cars stark white between bold-edged shadows. The forest crowded all around, never far from view in this town. Thranduil spotted Bard without difficulty, facing a propped-up piece of metal near the tree line and doing something odd with his hands. As Thranduil drew closer, realization struck. Bard was holding a bow, an arrow notched all the way back to his cheek. The sight was so strange it stopped Thranduil short. For a moment he felt as if he had stumbled into a memory, as if Bard had suddenly been impressed on his entire history, as if he had been at Thranduil’s side for all these long centuries. Perhaps if he had, things would have been different.

The strange musings were cut short by the whistle of a loosed arrow. Moments later it was embedded in the metal plate a good distance away, clustered with the rest of its sisters Bard had fired before. The shot was true.

Bard was reaching down for another arrow he’d jabbed point-down into the grass when he saw Thranduil. For a moment they watched each other, Bard wary and Thranduil still frozen in a faint sense of enchantment. Such soft, rotting thoughts were unfit for his kind. Thranduil had been certain that a stranger’s blood was the cure, yet it seemed to have only made them worse.

At last Thranduil shook his head and stepped forward again, coming to a stop at the man’s side as he drew the bow again. Bard said nothing, sighting down the shaft for the target once again. Thranduil could hear the tension in the old, polished wood, see Bard’s muscles trembling ever so slightly with the effort of keeping it straight. When the arrow loosed, it flew to the mark and lodged in its heart.

“I had no idea you were so skilled with a bow,” Thranduil said softly.

Bard relaxed the draw of his bow, ignoring Thranduil’s compliment. “I’m out of practice. I used to be a lot better.” The same tension Thranduil had noted when last they had seen each other still clung to him in the set of his shoulders, the tightness of his jaw. Thranduil hadn’t forgotten the look on Bard’s face as he watched Thranduil wipe the police officer’s blood from his lips. With their connection diluted, it was impossible for Thranduil to know what the man was feeling right now. He could only look, and guess.

Before he could think the action through, Thranduil reached down to take Bard’s wrist in a gentle grip. The man stiffened, watched as Thranduil flipped the hand over to study the palm. He kept his touch light and brief as he traced the curves on the man’s fingertips. The touch of their skin together seemed to vibrate like the string of the bow after speeding an arrow on its way.

“You still have a callous from pulling the string,” he said quietly. “Your body remembers more than you think.” He released Bard’s hand just as quickly, afraid the man might pull away. But Bard merely looked up at him with a look Thranduil found difficult to decipher.

“It’s a beautiful weapon,” Thranduil continued. “And an unusual one. I haven’t seen a wooden bow like that in centuries.”

“It’s a family heirloom,” Bard replied. “Not as old as that, though. My grandfather was a woodworker—a bit of a hermit, really. He hunted for his food, and made his own tools. He left this to my father, and my father to me. I had almost forgotten I had it.” He held up one of the arrows, metal and fletched with plastic. “I bought these to practice with. But that’s not what I wanted to show you.” From a second quiver on the ground beside him, Bard drew forth a different arrow. “Grandad carved these himself. Wooden, with burnt tips to make them stronger. He showed me how to do it—I can make more.”

Thranduil accepted it from Bard, inspected it closely. A small smile was dawning on his lips. “You are a clever man, Bard.”

Bard shrugged. “I’m no match for your strength, and I doubt I’d be much better against Smaug’s. But if I could strike from a distance… perhaps I’d have a better chance.”

“Killing our kind by arrow has an erratic history,” Thranduil said. “The greatest difficulty comes from hitting the heart. Changes in weaponry, such as metal arrowheads, made it so that even a true shot would only injure us—the invention of firearms was the best thing that my kind could have hoped for. But with your skill,” he said as he tested the point on his finger, “these might just work.”

Bard took the arrow back from him. He seemed to be avoiding Thranduil’s gaze. “A bit of optimism. There’s something you don’t come across every day.”

“Yet well-needed, I think,” Thranduil said. “Things have been difficult for some time. I think it’s only fair for us to seek out a little good.” In spite of himself, Thranduil heard the echo of Tauriel’s words in his own voice. He shouldered that memory aside. He was committed to making this a good night, to proving they could still _have_ good nights. As few as might be left to them. “We will deal with them as we dealt with those before,” Thranduil said firmly. “Do not forget that we won.”

A muscle in Bard’s cheek tightened. “ _You_ won,” he said quietly. “I survived.” In his tone Thranduil could hear the same cold distance that had opened up between them when Bard watched him feed. Had there even been a time when he and Bard had found some kind of stability? When it wasn’t a matter of days, hours, even minutes, before something happened to turn the two of them against each other again? He wanted tonight to be different.

Without another word, Bard had plucked the metal arrows out of the ground and set off to retrieve the rest from the target. When he came back he walked past Thranduil without looking, walking back through the cars quietly sinking into the soft grass, towards the driving white glare of the garage’s floodlights. Thranduil fell into step beside him, feeling the tension between them like a mass of knotted threads, and wondering which end to try to unravel first.

“How are you feeling?” he decided on at last. When Bard shot him an odd look, he continued, “This has been the first time I drank blood that wasn’t yours in over two months. I, for one, am noticing a difference.”

Bard just shook his head. When he spoke, his words were curt. “I don’t know. My dreams last night had changed. I feel…” He broke off, shaking his head.

“I had hoped you would feel rejuvenated, with some more time to recuperate.”

“Should I thank you, then?” Bard said sharply. “Don’t try and pretend that what you did was for my benefit.”

Thranduil stared at him in mild disbelief, nearly walking into the side of a car. “It was for both of our benefit, Bard, and no one was harmed. Why are you angry?”

This time Bard did not give him the benefit of a response. His face stayed stony and cold. Thranduil recognized that look, the way Bard’s face simply shut down, yanking away to some unreachable depths. Bard sped up his pace for the rest of the walk to the garage, motions stiff and stilt-like. For a moment Thranduil was sure the man would storm through the door and leave him standing out in the cold—but then, almost as an afterthought, Bard paused in the doorway to hold it open for him. Thranduil stepped past, offering no thanks but feeling a twinge of relief all the same.

The air was warmer as they stepped back into the garage, smelling of oil and cleaning solutions. The smell had bothered Thranduil when he started spending time here, but now he merely associated it with Bard himself. Bard went straight for his office, a tiny room to the side of the garage itself furnished with little more than a desk and two chairs. Bard sank into one as Thranduil retrieved the brown-paper parcel he’d left in the garage itself. He refused to identify the squirming sensation in the pit of his stomach as nervousness. 

Bard looked up in surprise as Thranduil stepped forward and set the package on the cluttered desk before him. “I have something for you,” he said softly.

Bard stared at it blankly before looking up at Thranduil with as little feeling. “What is it?”

Thranduil shrugged, sinking down into a chair across from Bard’s on the other side of the desk. “Open it.” Reluctantly, Bard picked it up and weighed it in his hands, trying to guess its contents. Thranduil watched his actions with a faint swelling of amused affection. “There’s no need to be nervous.”

Bard shot him a look. “Shockingly, I’m not as open to mysterious gifts as I used to be.” All the same, he unwrapped the paper and revealed its contents—a single bottle of dark wine, the label aged and brown, with two wine glasses padded in paper. The man stared blankly at Thranduil’s offering before looking back up to Thranduil. “What is this?”

Thranduil tilted his head, affecting a teasing smile. “Some call it wine. I didn’t think you were _that_ uncultured, Bard.”

“A bottle of expensive wine for a romantic evening?” Bard’s smile twisted bitterly. “That’s a little sick.” He slipped it back into the bag.

The smile on Thranduil’s face disappeared. “It’s good wine, Bard.”

“Wasted on me, then.” He pushed it across the table. Thranduil made no move to take it. It stood on the desk, vulnerable.

“I meant it as a gesture of sorts,” Thranduil said quietly. “I saw that you were upset last night. I wanted to… to do something. For you.” He shrugged, as if the words he’d said were nothing.

“So this is your apology,” Bard said slowly. “A bottle of wine. I suppose you plan to drink it with me, then?” When Thranduil did not reply, Bard laughed. “Of course. So let me guess at how you see this evening going: we have a drink, just like old times, mend our bridges, and then we go back to the nice comfortable way things were before? Ah, but wait,” Bard said, tapping his head as if chastising himself. “There was no ‘comfortable before’ to go back to.”

Thranduil looked away. “That isn’t want I intended.”

“Oh? Then what _did_ you intend? I’m quite interested to—“

“Bard, please!” Thranduil snapped, narrowly resisting the urge to leap from his chair. He took a steadying breath, forced his words to come out smoothly. “Don’t you get tired of arguing all the time? For one night, can’t we just… stop?”

He ignored the bottle of wine between them, staring at Thranduil and letting out a quiet sigh. “What do you want from me, Thranduil?”

Thranduil stared back without blinking. “Just this. Nothing more.”

At long last, Bard stood up. “Did you bring a bottle opener?” he asked. Wordlessly, Thranduil retrieved it from his pocket and placed it in Bard’s outstretched hand. The man made short work of opening it, sweeping the papers on his desk aside to place the wine glasses in their place. He poured a healthy amount in one cup, and then he kept pouring—until the dark liquid was nearly at the brim of the cup, and only then did he stop. Thranduil withheld comment.

Bard paused over the second cup, raising an eyebrow at Thranduil. “You’re drinking?”

Thranduil reached forward to tip the end of the bottle up, just enough to splash a finger of liquid into the glass. “I can’t,” he replied. He lifted the glass to his face and inhaled, his eyes drifting shut. “But there are other small comforts it brings.”

“You could always just swish it around and spit,” Bard said flippantly, reaching down to scoop up his own glass, nearly spilling its contents over the side, and began to drink.

“Maybe you should take it slow,” Thranduil suggested carefully.

Bard stopped drinking for long enough to shoot Thranduil a nasty smile. “It’s my gift, isn’t it?” he retorted. “I’ll drink it how I want.”

“It’s very strong.”

“Even better. It’s been too long since I’ve had a good drink.” He tipped his glass up and finished the rest, then poured himself another brimming portion. “So how did you pick this out?” he asked, swirling its contents in the glass. “Remembering your old favorites? Planning on having a taste once it hits my blood?”

Thranduil grimaced. “Bard—”

“Stop.” Bard held up a finger to cut him off. “If you want tonight to be different, let’s start with one rule: no lying. No manipulating. Just talk to me for once, alright?”

Slowly, Thranduil nodded. And yet as soon as he gave Bard permission to continue the interrogation, the man shied away. He drained his second glass of wine, ending with a faint grimace. Already Thranduil could smell it coming off his skin, the fragrance of the wine mingling with Bard’s own scent, the blood pulsing in his arteries and veins. Thranduil raised his own cup to his nose and inhaled, trying to chase away the lingering sense of guilt Bard had planted in him. Perhaps his motivations had been selfish. Such trivialities had never bothered him before—after all, he was a selfish being, and as long as he got what he wanted he had little care as to how he got it. But Bard saw right through him, and rejected everything but the truth. It was infuriating. It was what made Bard so invaluable.

“First question, then,” Bard said, staring at Thranduil with an expression that suggested he expected Thranduil to lie at the earliest opportunity. “What happened to your face?” Bard held his hand up to cover the right side of his face as he spoke.

Thranduil felt his fingers leaping to his own cheek automatically, for a moment expecting to feel the seared, twisted flesh beneath his fingertips. He let it fall a moment later. The scars may not hurt him physically as long as he stayed well fed, but the pain the memory left him with was worse than any bodily agony. In truth he was surprised Bard had not asked him earlier. Perhaps the man found it easier not to think of Thranduil as a creature with a history, with wounds.

“Tokens from my last meeting with Smaug,” Thranduil said quietly. “Perhaps you understand better why I am afraid of him.”

Bard offered no condolences, and Thranduil expected none.

When Bard spoke again, it was not what Thranduil expected. “Tell me something else about yourself.”

Thranduil thought about it. “Something about my history?” he asked.

“Anything.”

Thranduil contemplated it. There were many things he could say that might move things in a better direction, memories of his life as a human that might help Bard relate to him, amusing anecdotes to smooth the tension. But Thranduil knew that Bard would know what he was doing. So he merely spoke the first thing that came to mind.

“I’m worried about Tauriel,” he said, fingering the stem of his wineglass thoughtfully. He was almost surprised by the truth of the statement, the vulnerability he was allowing himself. “I’ve hardly seen her this past week. She’s acting strangely, pushing me away. She thinks I should kill you.”

“Yes, so she’s told me,” Bard muttered. “And why don’t you?”

“Because I don’t want to,” Thranduil said, with more vehemence than he had intended.

Bard stared at him for a long moment before he took another longer drink. This time when he spoke his eyes remained on his glass, his brow creased with pain. “Do you care about me?”

“Yes.” Thranduil looked up at him with defiance in his eyes. “And do you care about me?”

Bard stared into the contents of his wine glass with a dull expression on his face. “Funny word,” he said. “‘Caring’. Maybe you care about me, as in you like me, and maybe I care about you because you’re something I can’t ignore.”

“I can’t ignore you either, Bard,” Thranduil said softly.

Bard didn’t look at him. “You could if you wanted to. You have the option.”

Thranduil didn’t argue with him. He was in no hurry for Bard to know the depth of his attachment. Bard drank in silence for a while. The bottle was halfway empty. Before long Thranduil could see the effects of the alcohol in the sloppiness of his movements, the way his eyes drifted rather than focusing on anything at all. When he reached out to move the bottle beyond Bard’s reach, Bard took it in a grip that threatened to shatter the glass. Thranduil released it. The man kept drinking.

“As for me, what choice do I have?” Bard wondered aloud, continuing the train of their previous conversation as if no time had passed at all. His movements had grown more languid the more that he drank, and Thranduil noticed that now he was practically slumped in his chair. He still wouldn’t meet Thranduil’s gaze. “I mean, the blood-drinking aside, let’s think about this logically. I’ve known you for, what—four months? Long time. And I talk to you more than my friends—” He broke off with a bitter laugh. “Hell, what friends? Now even my kids won’t talk to me. And you’re the only person I can talk to about all the things in my life, and I spend most of my time thinking about you, whether I want to or not—so I guess that makes you my only friend, and by definition my best friend.”

The words came tumbling out of his words, slowly at first and then as if he was unable to stop them. Afterwards Bard fell silent, emptied out, and stared at the grains of wood on the desk as if he could push them aside and see something deeper beneath. The moment stretched on. Then, with a sudden motion, Bard reached for the bottle of wine and raised it to his lips, the glass forgotten. In less than a minute he had downed its entire contents. Thranduil watched him silently, as a human might have stood very still near a wild animal. Bard was gone, far gone—it wasn’t just the wine. He had been teetering on the edge of something before he’d even opened the bottle, and Thranduil had unintentionally pushed him over.

He clenched his teeth and resisted the urge to smash the empty bottle against the wall. A poisoned gift it had turned out to be indeed. “Why are you doing this, Bard?” he said with as much control as he could muster. “Mere days ago, you had sought me out. I thought things were different between us.”

Bard smiled. It started as a pained twinge in his eyes and then spread as a grimace over his mouth. “You thought I had forgotten everything you’d done to me, you mean,” Bard said softly. “You know, I almost had.”

Immediately something clicked into place. “Is this about the policeman?” Thranduil said, disbelief coloring his voice. The sudden hard look in Bard’s eyes was enough. “Bard, you can’t be serious,” Thranduil said. “I didn’t hurt him, I didn’t—”

“I saw your face,” Bard snapped, louder perhaps than he had intended, but he did not seem to hear it himself. “The second you tasted his blood you were completely, utterly gone. You didn’t care who it was you were drinking from. We’re all just cattle to you.”

“ _You_ are more than that to me,” Thranduil insisted.

“Don’t try and tell I’m different.”

Thranduil stared at him in open bewilderment. “Are you _jealous_?”

 “ _Jealous_?” Bard laughed, a short, stunted sound. “You’re insane.”

Thranduil shook his head, continuing on all the same. “That man was nothing, Bard, don’t think he wasn’t—I would have killed him in an instant if you had wanted it. I’ll track him to his house and kill him in his bed if you so much as ask me now.”

 “Stop it,” Bard snapped. “Don’t pretend I would ever want that.”

“Then what _do_ you want?” Thranduil cried in frustration. “Just tell me, and I’ll give it to you!”

Bard stared at him with a cold, sullen glare. "Would you leave?" he said in a level voice. "If I told you that I would feel safer, happier, with you far away from me and my family, would you go and not come back?"

The moment stretched between them. Thranduil felt something like a knot in his heart, hard and painful, and he wasn’t sure who between the two of them had tied it. "Smaug is still on the hunt," Thranduil argued weakly. "We can't know that you would be safe without protection."

Slowly, Bard shook his head. "Just like I thought. You don't want to make me happy. You want me in your debt. You just want to use happiness as a way of maneuvering me closer to you." His words rung out hollowly, as cold and colorless as a grave on a grey moor. He stared at the empty wineglass in his hand, as if willing it to be full. A second later it shattered against the wall.

The sudden sound of breaking glass had Thranduil on his feet in an instant, instincts urging him to seek out the threat. Bard simply stared up at him placidly, his hand hanging by his side where it had fallen after he’d thrown it. It was only then that Thranduil saw how drunk he really was, for all his seemingly calm words. He was barely holding on, and Thranduil didn’t know how to pull him back.

“You own me,” Bard said, his voice utterly ragged, and Thranduil was amazed to hear how fervently the man believed his own words. “I’ll never be able to get away from you. You’re going to be here, with me, for the rest of my life. Until you kill me. That’s what you want.”

Thranduil opened his mouth, about to deny it on impulse—but Bard had said there were to be no lies between them tonight. He couldn’t tell Bard that he would leave, any more than he could tell him he wasn’t sure that he could kill him. He felt as if all the words he might have reached for were far away, separated by a heavy curtain through which no light or sound could pass. He could feel it drawing between them even now, as if he were watching Bard disappear behind it without knowing when he would see him again. So Thranduil remained silent, and the pain in Bard’s eyes deepened into a black anger.

“Fine,” Bard said at last, wiping the remainder of red wine from his lips with the back of a hand. His eyes, bright and fevered, did not leave Thranduil’s. “But you don’t get to ruin my life and walk away. This has to matter to you. I—I have to be—”

Bard faltered. The words seemed to come difficult to him now. Thranduil hung suspended, unsure whether to move forward or draw away. “What are you saying?”

Another long silence. “Come on,” Bard slurred, and in a moment he was out of the chair and on his feet, moving faster than the alcohol should have allowed him. “You never answered my question.”

“What question?” Thranduil asked, taking a step back. Bard followed the motion with two more of his own, rounding the desk until there was nothing between them. Bard staggered forward, and Thranduil moved away, until there was nowhere else to move to. His back hit the wall. Bard was on him in an instant, one hand braced against the wall to stop Thranduil from ducking away, his face mere inches from Thranduil’s. His eyes burned with something that seemed to take all the light in the room and consume it. Thranduil could have broken away, could have used his strength to push Bard back, but in those eyes he found himself utterly powerless.

“Well,” Bard said. “Did you come here to drink from me?” He practically whispered it against Thranduil’s neck.

The warmth of wine beneath Bard’s skin was as intoxicating as the alcohol itself. Thranduil forced himself to meet the pain in Bard’s eyes without distraction. “What do you want me to say?”

“The truth. Did you?”

Almost imperceptivity, Thranduil shook his head. “No.” It was, surprisingly enough, the truth. But he saw the flash in Bard’s eyes and knew it wasn’t enough.

The man leaned forward, closing the scant distance between them until their noses were almost touching. “And do you want to now?”

Unbidden by him, Thranduil’s eyes darted down to follow the curve of Bard’s neck, the sharp lines of his jaw, the dark line between his partly-open lips. _No lies._ “Yes.”

Bard’s eyes bored into his. The lids were half-closed with the effects of the wine, but beneath them the eyes were hard and clear with a fury Thranduil could not understand. Where had this come from? Hadn’t Bard last sought him out? There was something fragile hanging between them, as delicate as a spider’s web. Thranduil could feel it stretching, straining against the tension. Then he felt it snap. The man’s hand came up to grip Thranduil’s jaw with enough strength Thranduil thought he meant to tear it off. He didn’t. He leaned forward, and suddenly everything was warm.

It took Thranduil the span of five heartbeats pressed into his mouth before he could comprehend what was happening. Bard was kissing him. His lips pressed into Thranduil’s, soft and warm and ravenous with a hunger Thranduil could sympathize with. He felt teeth digging into his lower lip, he felt Bard’s hand holding his jaw in place, he felt the heat of Bard’s tongue sliding into his mouth like a brand of ownership. Thranduil could taste the wine. 

Thranduil yanked away, the shock taking over before his mind could master his body. Bard’s eyes snapped open to seize on him like an owl on a mouse, pupils blown so wide his eyes were nearly black. He surged forward again, catching the side of Thranduil’s lips as he turned away, then following the line of his jaw to kiss a searing line down Thranduil’s neck.

“ _Bard_ ,” Thranduil said, then tried again more firmly. “Stop. You’re drunk.”

“Yes I am,” Bard whispered into the crook of Thranduil’s neck. “All according to plan, right?”

“This isn’t what I intended,” Thranduil said, and yet his hands pressed to Bard’s chest did not push him away. Bard’s lips roving over the skin of his neck felt better than he could have imagined, kissing and sucking with enough force that if Thranduil weren’t what he was the skin would have bruised. It felt… incredible, really, to have the warmth of the man’s body pressed tightly to him, Bard kissing him with neither tenderness or reservation, better, even, than Thranduil could have ever let himself imagine. And then Bard’s hands were fisting in his hair and before Thranduil could think to stop him the man had wrenched Thranduil’s face down to press it against Bard’s own neck.

“Go on,” Bard hissed, and Thranduil could feel the vibration of those words through the flesh pressed to his face. “Take what you came here for.”

The smell of skin overpowered even the headiness of wine. It was tempting. So very tempting. His hands tightened in Bard’s coat.

A moment later he had shoved the man away, forcing him to take a staggering step backwards or fall. Thranduil stayed where he was—perhaps that was his first mistake. He didn’t immediately turn to leave, to step into the cold air where Bard would never follow, to leave the man to sweat out the wine and anger until they could talk, reasonably, about what had happened. Thranduil did not do those things. He simply stood there, frozen in place, and watched the way Bard’s chest heaved with every gasping breath.

“I’m not going to do this just so you can prove a point,” Thranduil said at last. “I can’t stop you from hurting yourself, but don’t ask me to do it for you.”

At once, Bard’s posture changed. He shrugged, his movements loose with the wine still coursing through his veins. “Fine,” he said, and at the same time he took a step to the side, towards the far wall—Thranduil watched him warily. Another step, and Thranduil frowned—what was he doing? It was only on the third, when Bard lunged for something on the ground, that Thranduil realized. He dove forward, snatching for the man’s wrists, but for the first time in a long time he was too slow.

Bard stumbled to his feet, something clear and bright clenched in his hand, held to his own throat—the broken stem of the wineglass. Thranduil could see the razor-sharp glint of broken glass where it pressed into Bard’s skin. For a moment, everything was frozen. Thranduil did not dare to move—his eyes were locked on Bard’s. There was something wild in them, something he had never seen before.

In the split second before, Thranduil saw the decision flit over Bard’s face. It looked something like a spasm of glee. Thranduil lunged forward, a soundless cry on his lips. At the same moment Bard had pushed the shard of glass straight into his artery.

The blood spurted out instantly, flecking the wall behind him as Thranduil’s momentum slammed them into it. Bard groaned, his expression almost surprised at his own pain. Thranduil covered the wound with a hand, felt the slick pulse of blood welling up under his skin—when he turned to Bard’s face, the man’s eyes were full of cold laughter.

“You’d better—close the wound,” he gasped.

Thranduil stared at him in disbelief—that Bard would do such a thing, and that it would actually work. The man had him now. He knew Thranduil wouldn’t let him die. And the smell of blood in the air was enough to make something curl deliciously inside of him, an echo of the kiss he’d tasted just minutes before.

With one hand Thranduil gripped Bard’s hair and wrenched it to the side, part of him relishing the man’s grimace of pain. “ _Damn you_ , Bard,” Thranduil hissed, and leaned forward to press his mouth to the wound.

He wasn’t going to let himself feed. He had meant simply to close the wound and then leave the man here to sober up, staying close enough that he could intervene if Bard tried anything else. But the taste… Thranduil found himself pushing closer, his teeth digging into the skin rather than closing it. The wine was rich and heady on Bard’s blood, and almost immediately its touch went straight to Thranduil’s own head. He swayed on his feet as it hit him, holding himself up with his grip on Bard himself—that the man was even vertical spoke to his strength. But it wasn’t just the wine. From the first warm gush on his tongue, Thranduil could taste Bard’s lust.

The connection between them surged back into place from the moment Bard’s blood touched his lips, as strong as if it had never been diluted. It hit him in waves, in tune with Bard’s heartbeat. Each one reached straight through him and struck like the sweet, keen sound of a bell, pealing through him in vibrations that made their way to his skin. Where in the past the man had fought with it, tried to smother it down, this time it was as immediate as it was devouring. Thranduil almost whimpered as he cleaved to the man’s body, pressing his mouth to the source of that sweetness like a drowning man gasping at an air bubble. He felt Bard grinding into him, hard already as his hands fisted in Thranduil’s hair. His breaths were ragged and tinged with need.

When Thranduil finally managed to wrench himself away from the now-closed wound, his body drew in a gasping, reflexive breath—a momentary lapse, his cells forgetting they were dead. With the help of the wine now pumping through his veins, Thranduil felt full of heat and light, his head swaying like a ship. Pressed to Bard as he was, he could feel the man shaking. It wasn’t with fear. Even now his body arched against Thranduil’s, seeking pressure, seeking friction. Touching him was like pressing his hand to a furnace in the cold, pleasant at first and then hot, then unbearable.

Thranduil raised his head, looked Bard in the eye. The haze had settled over his eyes the way alcohol never had, a softness like fire burning behind frosted glass. Thranduil knew the man’s blood still lingered on his tongue, but the warm flush of Bard’s mouth moved over his like a hand feeling along a wall in the dark. Bard’s lips tinged red with wine, and Thranduil’s with blood—what a pair they made, Thranduil thought almost giddily, before Bard was clumsily kissing him again. Kissing, and sinking his teeth into Thranduil’s lips hard enough to make Thranduil jerk back, cry out. He couldn’t help himself. He slammed Bard back into the wall, controlling him strength but still knocking a groan out of the man’s lungs and into Thranduil’s mouth.

He felt rather than heard Bard laugh, a brush of air over his cheek, a shudder in his diaphragm, and then Bard was kissing again, sloppy, wine-drunk kisses that Thranduil returned just as ineloquently, their motions acting out words they would never say in warped, misconstrued clauses. And then Bard’s hands were on his shoulders, pushing him not away but _down_ , so that Thranduil’s knees had buckled before his mind had even caught up with the action, and then he was kneeling at Bard’s feet and staring up at the man’s face, his hands clenched on Bard’s thighs. Bard looked down at him, breathing hard, brow contorted in a frown that said what was going to happen had already happened, and therefore couldn’t be stopped. He could feel Bard’s hunger through the wine settling over Thranduil’s mind like a soft coating of moss, blurring edges, gentling his harder planes.

Slowly his hand slid over the side of Thranduil’s head in a caress. Thranduil’s eyelids flickered at the touch. Bard’s other hand wasn’t idle. It began to undo his belt. For a moment Thranduil scarcely understood—the realization hit him like a hammer-blow, dizzying, enough to make him sway where he knelt. So fast. He hadn’t thought it would be this way. Bard was angry, they both were, and it was anger rather than understanding that drove them forward now. Thranduil wanted to take Bard apart. Bard… Thranduil never could determine what it was the man wanted. Even now, with Bard fumbling open his jeans and curling his other hand into Thranduil’s hair, holding him in place, he felt nothing but a void.

Doubt mingled with the wine and blood and lust coursing through Thranduil’s body. This was not right. And yet Thranduil didn’t care, couldn’t care, because the layers of Bard’s clothes were shoved aside and then they weren’t there at all. _What do you want? Just tell me, and I’ll give it to you._ There was no time to stop. Bard was taking what Thranduil had offered. He felt Bard’s hand’s tighten in his scalp as the man pulled him forward, and without letting himself stop to think Thranduil opened his mouth to take Bard in.

The gasp he heard from above was nothing compared to the way Bard’s body arched off the wall, his hips jerking forward until Thranduil shoved them back against the wall and held them there. The heat in his mouth was not unlike the rush of blood from a severed artery. The hunger rose, a darkness pressing behind his eyeballs that would never be fully satisfied. Bard felt it too. He could feel the man fighting against it, fighting for more, and Thranduil would give it to him. He moved his tongue over the head of Bard’s length, light enough to tease him until he tore a curse from Bard’s lips, and the man’s hand in his hair pressed Thranduil into the rhythm Bard wanted, quick and hard enough to start an ache in Thranduil’s jaw and a soreness in his throat.

After that, Bard didn’t speak. He bit back his moans. The only sounds he made were the slow, shuddering breaths he took, each one carefully measured, buckling at the edges but allowing no more than that. It was his hands that gave him away, how they grasped at Thranduil’s hair, gripping him hard enough to make Thranduil’s scalp burn with pain. It was a sweet pain. But it still hurt.

The movements of their bodies were unpracticed, discovering old nerve endings in rushes and gasps, little flicks of Thranduil’s tongue that plucked at the threads of Bard’s reserve, the heat and pressure filling Thranduil’s throat. He couldn’t let himself think about how long he’d waited for this. How long he’d thought about it, assuming that one day this would become a reality—and now that it was it seemed it was already a memory, clouded with the haze of alcohol, and even with Bard here, under his hands and in his mouth and simply _breathing_ above him, Thranduil felt as if he were grasping at something just out of reach, something he could never hold.

The thought made him careless, made him rougher than he meant to be, sucking hard and pressing his thumbs into Bard’s hips hard enough until he knew they would bruise. Bard responded with a faint growl in the back of his throat, and a tighter grip on Thranduil’s hair. Thranduil wanted to look up, to study Bard’s face. He imagined it look as it did in the glimpses Thranduil had caught in the bathroom mirror while he fed: the brows drawn together in agony, eyes squeezed shut in rapture, mouth hanging open, his, all _his_ —but Thranduil’s mind interjected. At once he saw an image of him on his knees, and Bard’s face showing… nothing. Only cold, distant reserve, broken by the involuntary shudder of a breath, feeling only the automatic pangs of his body, feeling nothing at all.

 _He’s using you the way you’ve used him. It’s all in the blood._ Thranduil squeezed his eyes shut against the thought, focused only on the heat and weight sliding down his throat, the smell of wine and cheap soap, the taste of him. Thranduil wouldn’t stop—this had to be right. After waiting so long, he would _make_ it right. And yet it was nausea, not lust, that curled in the pit of his stomach now.

He felt Bard tense, knew what was coming—he tried to slow, to draw it out longer, but Bard’s hands buried in his hair were unrelenting. With a final jerk Bard thrust into his mouth one last time, and came undone. Bard’s climax rushed through him, and Thranduil swallowed it down even as it passed him like a train from inches away, enough to nearly knock him down. A strangled groan fluttered past Bard’s lips, his hips bucking up helplessly until his orgasm left him wrung out, brittle against the wall behind him. Only then did his grip on Thranduil’s hair relax.

Thranduil pulled back, resting his forehead on Bard’s hip so that he wouldn’t have to look at the man’s face. Bard’s taste lingered in his mouth beside the coppery taste of wine and the lingering sweetness of wine. He pressed his tongue to the roof of his month and told himself that this was real. It felt as if he had woken from a dream—as if nothing had happened at all. For a moment they lingered like that, Bard’s hand settled on Thranduil’s hair, ruffling it in soft, absent-minded circles, as he might have stroked the fur of an animal. Thranduil focused on that, the gentle stirring on his scalp, the strange, possessive tenderness of it.

At long last, he forced himself to tilt his head back and seek Bard’s gaze. But the man’s eyes were closed—his head was leaned back against the wall, his expression blank with quiet exhaustion. The anger was gone. The betrayal. Now there was only that void that Thranduil had come to dread, the darkness behind Bard’s skull that Thranduil could never penetrate. It opened a pit in his stomach that swallowed his tenderness whole.

Thranduil rose to his feet, wiped his mouth and straightened his clothes and hair. Bard was watching him now, his own clothing fastened with mechanical hands. Bard was still drunk. Perhaps they both were. Perhaps it was only the lingering of the alcohol that made Thranduil’s head reel. In his chest was a feeling of breathlessness, even though it had been centuries since he had needed to draw breath. Under Bard’s unflinching gaze Thranduil felt naked, exposed to the sun. Had Bard ever looked at him like that before? They looked at each other, waiting for a cue, a line, a course of action. None came.

For the first time, there was nothing to fall back to. The old anger, the old insults, the familiar push and pull of their partnership as regular as the tides—it was gone, all gone. He no longer felt as if he and Bard were teetering on the edge of a cliff. The earth had shifted. They had plunged over it—they were falling. It was too late to change course—the path was set, the direction clear. What exactly it was that was rushing towards them as inevitably as the oncoming ground, Thranduil could not say. For now there was only the sense of weightlessness, of waiting for the final crunch.  The question in Bard’s eyes burned in Thranduil’s mind with a tentative, guttering flame: _What happens now?_ There was no answer.

When Bard spoke at last, his voice was quiet, as monotone as the repeated lines of a prayer. “I dreamed about you last night,” he heard Bard murmur in a voice softened by wine and satiation. “We were standing together in the sunlight. I burned. You didn’t. What does that mean?”

The words sent a chill through Thranduil’s veins. Unbidden, the memory of his own dream leapt into his mind—the blank darkness of Bard’s eyes dancing with reflected flames, the strike of a match, the unbearable heat. _Don’t fear the dark._ He hadn’t known what the dream meant then, and he didn’t know now. All he knew is that when he looked at Bard now, part of him prickled and rose like the hackles of a dog. Afraid, yes. For Bard, or of him, it was not clear. Neither sentiment was welcome, neither he could understand.  

“It was just a dream,” Thranduil said at last, both to Bard and himself. He was surprised by how tired his own voice sounded. He turned to the door. He should be outside, in the cold and the wild, the elements that belonged to him. They felt alien now, unwelcoming, but they were all he had. He could feel Bard’s eyes on him as he hesitated, drilling into the back of his head. He wondered what they saw, what the man felt. The bond was a dangerous thing. He’d never thought so until this moment.

“I don’t have a choice either, you know,” Thranduil said, speaking aloud to the air. “I can’t leave. Not really.”

Bard said nothing. Thranduil did not expect him to. He left, stepping out into the air that felt unpleasantly cold against his skin. The forest waited, yet he felt no pleasure as he crossed its threshold. The cold held no charm for him tonight. He didn’t want to feel the death creeping inside of him like maggots worming through his marrow. And yet the cure was one he could only steal, sip by sip.

Thranduil reached up to touch his lips, remembered how Bard’s teeth had sunken into him as they might have bitten into the tender flesh of a peach. Perhaps, soon, he might feel such a thing again. The thought did not stir him as he thought it would. A feeling sat in the pit of his stomach, a smooth, oily weight. Something was going to happen. He had known it when he woke at nightfall—he knew it better now. Perhaps, by dusk tomorrow, he would finally see the shape of it.

It was five hours from dawn. Tauriel was still gone. Whatever he was falling towards rushed closer, and Bard was falling with him.

The thought gave little comfort.  


	19. Chapter 19

Dawn was thickening in her veins. It dragged on the edge of her consciousness, turning her thoughts slow, syrupy, difficult to process. She had heard of new vampires whose sires did not warn them well enough about the influence of the sun, staying out too late and falling asleep under the sky. They woke up in flames.

Tauriel refused to die like that. It wouldn’t be the sun that killed her tonight.

From behind there was no sound of pursuit, but Tauriel knew they were coming. She could feel it, a prickle rising up on the back of her neck whenever she rested too long. They were getting closer—but the sun, the sun would stop them all. The pieces of the game would be frozen for as long as it took for darkness to fall. And then—then Tauriel would be ready.

But first, she had to survive to the dawn. She lurched onward, dragging one leg behind her like a heavy suitcase.

At last she stumbled, fell, struggled to her feet—and fell again, in a burst of pain that lit up the inside of her skull with a searing red light. Her muscles seemed disconnected from her brain, the strings of the marionette chopped. This was it. She could go no further.

Limbs heavy, Tauriel leaned on a tree and dragged her eyes over the forest around her. The rocky backs of the hills thrust up nearby, but there was no sign of a cave that might have sheltered her. Tauriel looked up. The sky was lightening. It was a sight she hadn’t seen in—not since—

Her thoughts scattered and wheeled like a flock of starlings. Her phone was gone, lost, destroyed, taken. That, of course, had been a part of the enemy’s plan. There was no help to reach out to, no way to warn of the jaws of the trap rushing together—panic seared her heart. She needed to get to Thranduil. No, it was too late, too late. She needed to find shelter. She stumbled from tree to tree, feet scraping the ground beneath her. It seemed that whatever was hunting her had already caught up, that they were pacing at her heels and waiting for her to collapse before they crowded in to feed. So many mouths in the awful half-light. She wouldn’t risk a glance over her shoulder. She kept pushing on, eyes searching for any piece of darkness she could crawl into and escape the blasting radiance that even now crept over the horizon.

 Her ears were ringing, as if light could have a sound. She had forgotten how beautiful the world was at pre-dawn. How the blues melted into pale greys and then grew laced with gold, how the first sleepy bird-calls would ring in the clear air—she shook her head, struggling to clear it of these strange, sun-driven thoughts. Darkness. Relief. That was what she needed. She could hardly feel her injured leg anymore, the claw marks dragged almost to the bone. In a few moments, she would feel nothing ever again. There would be no cave, no hollow, no cellar. She was in the middle of the woods, and dawn was about to break open like an egg cracked on the horizon.

Something struck her from behind. The blow hit her in the middle of the shoulder blades and sent her flying forward. She rolled, pain breaking through the haze in her mind, and got her back against the trunk of a dead tree seconds before the next impact. Thoughts came to her with brief, exhausted simplicity: _They had found her. The stake_ —

And then it was on her.

The fledgling slammed into her with enough force to send the tree-trunk rocking backwards, all teeth and fingers and mad, carnivorous instinct. Tauriel got one hand on its throat, the skin slipping and loose under her hands. Already falling apart. And yet it was small, light, not so strong. Tauriel looked into its face, a face whose flesh was already hanging limp like something submerged underwater for far too long, the violent red of the corneas sagging into the air. The jaws snapped. The small hands clawed at her. For a moment, Tauriel could not move. She found herself wondering, in that slow, golden-lighted way, how much quicker it must have been to drain the blood from a child. It must have come pouring out as soon as Smaug  delicately slit the throat, driven in waves by a heart still fresh to terror, so small and yet beating so very fast.

The stake drove into the fledgling’s tiny chest before Tauriel felt her arm do the work. She was clumsy, weak. It wasn’t a clean kill. She pressed the wood in deeper, feeling the crunch of bone and the wet slurp of muscle being pierced. At last, the heart. She knew it for the sigh and the smell of ash in the air, ash which crumbled and fell apart before Tauriel had even wrenched the stake away.

She remained where she was, slumped with her back to the tree, her legs and stomach covered in grey dust. The wooden spike slipped onto the dirt beside her, her fingers still curled around its absence. She could see no other fledglings behind her, but they wouldn’t be far. This had been the first of many. For a moment longer she lay there. This spot was as good as any to die in. She’d seen death in plenty of places, never thinking about how her victims might feel about the locale.

Well. If she was to die like this, it wouldn’t be without taking enough of them down with her. She owed Thranduil that much. Because by darkfall tomorrow, it would be him lying in her place, dying a fool’s death for a human he should have forsaken—but if he was a fool, then Tauriel was the fool that sealed his fate. He would have no warning. If she was lucky, there would be no time for him to realize how lightly she had betrayed him.

The thought contorted her face into a snarl of grief, her ash-greyed hand raising as if to press the tears back into her eyes—but she couldn’t cry anymore. Her body had lost the capacity. All she had left now was the capacity to kill.

Her hand reached down among the tree roots for the stake. What it found was damp earth, and a hollow that hadn’t been there before. Tauriel peered closer. Between the roots was shadow, darkness, the smell of rot, exposed by the impact of the fledgling tearing it partly loose.

She set her shoulder to the wood of the tree and heaved. It had been long dead, just as she had, but death had sapped its strength where it had only made her stronger. She pushed, teeth bared in a grimce as she willed her leg not to give out, until with a creak of rotting wood the tree was pushed back, up, enough to open the hollow beneath its roots like a gash filled with thick, black blood. Under the earth, the roots had already rotted away. There was space, not enough space, but it would have to be enough.

Tauriel stripped off her jacket, wincing at the jolt it caused her wounds. She stuck her head into the crevice in the soft earth. At once, the smell of mud, decay. Her delicate hearing picked up the writhe and clicking of insects squirming in the dirt with long legs and wet bodies, their long night disturbed at last. Behind her, she felt a prickle beginning on her skin, like cold, or the burn of some harsh chemical. The sun. There was no time.

Closing her eyes, Tauriel slid the rest of her body beneath the tree’s roots, and pulled the rotting stump down as far as it would go behind her. She sealed up the crack with dirt and waited, watching for a speck of light. She had the distinct impression of being in an oven, waiting to be burned alive.

Had the others made it out? Would those that pursued them have made it farther? And at the end of the day when the sun slipped beneath the horizon like a ship being claimed by the sea, what would be waiting for her back in the town where Thranduil waited, oblivious, so short a distance away?

Tauriel lay in the moldy dark, the dawn filling her veins with hardening amber. She was not so far from Thranduil now. Neither were her pursuers.

Who would reach them first?

She fled into a golden nothing.

 

* * *

 

_Eight hours earlier._

It began in the mud. Tauriel could feel it creeping into her boots as she crouched low to the ground. She hadn’t thought there would be this much waiting—the minutes crawled over her skin like the touch of insect legs, leaving a stiff, prickling residue in their wake. Automatically her hands would dart up to brush them away, finding nothing but cold skin. The smell of earth filled her nose. She told herself she was ready.

It was hard to believe that at the beginning of this very night she had awakened just as she always had, in the same abandoned cellar smelling the same cheap paint and mold that had assaulted her every nightfall since she had arrived in town months ago. It hadn’t felt like the start of something. Not until she had sat up, and seen the bag.

It was one of three things in the room that wasn’t beginning to decay, other than her, and the chain that held the door shut from the inside. It had sat in the middle of the floor where she had dropped it the previous morning, still heavy with the stakes and knives she had plundered from Thranduil under his nose.

The memory nagged at her even here, crouched and teetering on the edge of some vast darkness. She took a slow, deep breath of the forest air, drawing it into lungs which had long since forsaken the need for air. She let it sink down into her, the scent of leaf-rot and ice stiffening the air. It was a grave kind of smell, and she told herself that such things were the province of her kind. Tonight, there would be no doubt, no second-guessing. Only action and intent. The Durins had a plan, a clear path to follow; the first she’d felt beneath her feet in some time. Without it, she was lost.

And here she was. Crouched in mud as dark as the night around her in a different kind of waiting.

“How are you holding up?”

Kili’s voice sounded in her ear, as soft as the whisper of leaves yet jarring nonetheless. If Tauriel was to be honest with him, she would say that she was nervous. But she didn’t want to be nervous—she wanted even less for him to know that she was. So she shot him a smile, a pale crescent in the darkness. “Just wondering what’s taking so long.”

“Give them time. They’ll be here.”

She felt his hand squeeze her shoulder, a well-needed reassurance. It coaxed the words out before she could stop them. “I’ve never been in a battle before,” she said. “Not like this.”

Kili chuckled. “With any luck, it will be no battle at all.”

“If all goes according to plan,” Tauriel said, unable to keep the wry edge from creeping into her voice. When did anything ever go according to plan?

She tried to picture the map just as it had been when Thorin spread it out on the table, back in the cave only a couple hours ago. It had been written on until it was almost illegible, with a giant X covering one portion.

“Does ‘x’ mark the place where the treasure is buried?” Tauriel had asked.

“It marks the place where we’re most likely to die, I’m afraid,” said the white-haired man Tauriel identified as Balin. “Smaug’s current location, as it’s been for the past five days.”

“What’s stopping him from attacking now?” Tauriel had asked. “Why wait?”

“He’s gathering his strength,” Thorin said quietly. “All his worst, all in one place. We believe that Thranduil is only his first target; once all his fledglings, and fledgling’s-fledglings are gathered, he’ll lead them on a campaign wiping out all his enemies on the entire continent.”

“Why let an ocean or two stop him?” Balin had muttered darkly. “This will be a culling like our kind haven’t seen in millennia.”

Tauriel felt a prickle in the winter air at the memory of those words. She shook her head, trying to focus only on the information she needed. The X had been penned over a town called Mountain View, small enough that it scarcely deserved a place on the map. Not far—not very far at all, really—was another X, over a slightly larger town called Laketon. Bard’s town. She hadn’t guessed that Smaug was so very close already. He could have made it to them in a single night. She tried to imagine the distances spread out over the hills and trees around her, inches stretched out into miles. They didn’t feel any bigger when she was standing here now. All the miles in the world couldn’t have made Smaug feel any less dangerous. 

Five days. Five days Smaug had waited here, festering like a wound. He must have known exactly how far to stay without alerting Thranduil to his presence, under their noses for almost a week. From their position on the hillside, Tauriel could look down at the buildings, all so dark. No life stirred. She’d wondered how they’d managed it, staying in one place for so long with such a large force gathered; Bofur had spoken her mind, there at the table with the map in between them all.

“What are they eating?” he’d asked.

Tauriel still remembered the exact shape of Thorin’s smile, the way it stretched his face in a way that didn’t seem amused at all. “The town.”

It wasn’t difficult to imagine. Smaug’s minions would have worked quickly—in the daylight they would have been vulnerable, but they didn’t need that long. They struck at night, rounding up or killing all the humans they could find. According to Thorin’s scouts, they had penned them up in a high school gymnasium. Tauriel felt as if she were there now: all those warm bodies packed into a space without light or air. Bound, perhaps. Duct tape. Rope. The smell of fear rising sharp over the stench of worse things. No voices, but a constant rustle of sound and motion, the ripple of crying. Tauriel made it a point not to practice sympathy for humans, but the image made her stomach turn. There was no honor in harvesting their blood like pigs in a pen. Without the ritual of the hunt, there was nothing but survival. It was… wrong. An unfamiliar definition.

And within the next night or so, Smaug’s food supply would be gone. The swarm would move on. And Thranduil was next.

Tauriel’s eyes scraped the darkness, picking out the hulking shapes of the buildings. Smaug would be somewhere near that gym, close to his food supply, far from the threat of daylight. Even a vampire as old as him still had to flee the sun—yet Tauriel had heard rumors, stories of Smaug walking abroad on days when the clouds were thick enough. She tried not to put any stock in them. The thought of being awakened on a cloudy day by the sound of her cellar door being wrenched off its hinges, letting the light flood in, weak yet enough to roast her alive—it wasn’t pleasant.

Nearby, a stirring in the leaf little snapped Tauriel’s focus back to the presence. Someone was coming. She shifted her weight to the balls of her feet and tightened her grip on her stake—until Kili grabbed her arm, shaking his head, and slowly rose to his feet. Tauriel relaxed, but only slightly. When she stood, she didn’t put awake her stake.

“Thorin,” Kili said, as three distinct shadows picked their way out of the darkness. Two of them were melded together, shuffling as one. They brought with them the smell of blood, and a warmth that made the roots of Tauriel’s teeth ache. The human. Bilbo.

He walked at Thorin’s side, a hand clutching Thorin’s arm. To his human eyes, it must have been pitch black. Yet he was surprisingly quiet, considering. Tauriel hadn’t heard him any sooner than the rest of her kind. Still, his presence here set a hard edge to her teeth.

“Is everything ready?” Kili said.

Tauriel saw Thorin nod, a mere shifting of the shadows. “The others are getting in position. It’ll begin soon, now.”

“There’s a better view of the western side of town from the gnoll half a mile that way,” Kili said. “I wanted to scout it out one last time.”

“Not a bad idea,” Thorin said. “Fili and I will cover you. Bilbo: stay here.” To Tauriel, he had nothing to say. The implication was clear: babysit. She felt Kili’s hand brush her own, saw the edge of his cheerfully apologetic smile in the darkness—and then he was gone, with the rest of his coven, leaving her and the human.

Bilbo stood silently where Thorin had left him for a long time. Tauriel was painfully aware of his breathing, as quiet as it was—it grated on her ears with every inhale and exhale, a sign of other-ness, of prey. She kept her eyes on the darkness where the town should have been. The vast absence that should have contained streetlights, living room windows, and cheery shopfronts open late was so heavy it took on a texture of its own—a kind of un-light, that grew and festered on the expectation that something, anything, should be where nothing was.

“Excuse me,” Bilbo’s voice came, quiet yet all-too-loud. “But I’m afraid I can’t see enough to put one foot in front of the other at the moment, and I don’t fancy the idea of tumbling down the hill.”

Tauriel turned back to look at him. His eyes scanned the darkness blindly, searching for a face or a form and finding nothing. She smiled, rather cruelly, and he didn’t see that either. But any sport she might have had was quelled by the knowledge of what Thorin would do to her if he found his human lodged in a tree and drained of all blood. Besides. As much as Tauriel hated to admit it, he was an essential part of the plan. A vampire, Smaug or his minions would kill on site. But a human—a human would be saved to be turned. And this human Smaug had seen before.

So she stood up and begrudgingly took the human by his warm arm and marched him over to the level patch of ground she had been occupying. She steered him in front of a fallen tree and then plopped him down onto it.

“Thank you,” he said after a moment, though he didn’t sound very thankful at all.

Tauriel grunted in reply.

There was a long, pointe silence. “You don’t like me very much, do you?”

She didn’t look at him, but she could hear the quiet smile in his voice. Tauriel resisted the urge to snort. “What gives you that impression?”

“I’m a very perceptive person. Also, I think you bruised my arm just then.”

This time, Tauriel did snort. “Sorry.”

“I don’t think you are.”

“My, you _are_ perceptive.”

“Or perhaps you’re just easy to read,” Bilbo said with a  chuckle. He was a man very accustomed to the sound; it made his eyes light up with a wry sort of light. He had a round face, and curly hair, yet he was hardly the jolly schoolteacher or champion knitter that Tauriel might have labeled him as. There was some steel in him, that was certain. He wouldn’t have made a bad vampire.

“You aren’t afraid of me.” It was hard to mask the air of baffled wonder in her voice. With a start, Tauriel realized he was the first human to know what she was from the very beginning, yet never once feel fear.

“Try not to sound so offended,” Bilbo said. He paused, seeming to consider his words. “Thorin’s told me a bit about you.”

“I’m sure he painted a lovely word picture.”

“Don’t worry. I scarcely believe a word he says.” Tauriel glanced at him, saw that he was smiling at nothing—but of course, to his eyes there was nothing to smile _at_. “Honestly, I’m surprised that you came. From what I understand, this doesn’t seem to be your fight.”

“And it’s yours?” she said, raising an eyebrow.

“It’s Thorin’s. And I’m under contract.” There was a note of wry amusement in Bilbo’s voice that Tauriel did not ask after. “I was a doctor, before all of this happened. It was my research on certain properties in the blood that originally dragged me into this. Thorin thought I was onto something that could give us an advantage against Smaug.” A moment later Bilbo sighed. “I was with them during the first assault—the one that woke him up.”

Tauriel hesitated. She recognized the cast of Thorin’s words in this man’s mouth. The curiosity that had burned beneath her general dislike was finally worming its way to the surface. “That was when you met Smaug.”

Bilbo’s motion was half-shrug, half-nod. “Yes. I think he was amused by me. I was a novelty. Like a tap-dancing rat in his eyes. The things he said…” A shudder moved through his body, making it seem smaller than it really was. “I’ve perfected my research as best I can. That’s the only thing I can be certain of. What I found might be the key to destroying Smaug for good, and what he told me might show us how.” A rueful smile intruded on his face. “Assuming, of course, that I can get to him.”

“And how exactly are you planning on doing that?”

Bilbo flashed a brief grin. “You must allow me at least a couple of mysteries. Trust me. We have a plan." 

“ _Quiet_.” The voice came from the shadows, making Tauriel’s skin leap with sudden fear—but it was only Thorin, Fili and Kili in tow, stalking back into their little clearing. And this time, they were not alone.

Legolas’s presence was as familiar as a childhood smell, something that yanked them both into the same primordial darkness they were born from. He stepped out of the forest at the Durins’ heels, either oblivious to or ignoring Thorin’s cold regard. While talking to Bilbo, she had almost forgotten what they came here to do. Now, she forced herself to remember it as keenly as the edge of a knife. She stepped closer, speaking in an undertone to be heard only by him. “I’m glad you came,” she said. “You didn’t have to.”

Legolas regarded her, the blue of his eyes turned deep and lightless. “But I did. It seems we all must choose a side.”

Tauriel’s mouth twisted. “I haven’t chosen a side. I’m working with the Durins, no more than that.”

“Not with the Durins, or with Thranduil. We’re choosing between trying to change the structure of the world, or waiting for it to come crashing down on us.”

Legolas was as cool and sharp as a naked blade. There was no hint of fear in him, though Tauriel knew it must be there, somewhere, buried deep. She felt the stirrings of it herself. She looked at him, and for a moment he was the same strange, pale figure who had regarded her for the first time, on that first night of the nights that would become her entire whole. For the first time, she wondered if they would both make it out of this. It seemed suddenly ridiculous that they all would be okay.

“What word?” Kili said from behind her, and she and Legolas had to move on.

“I came from the east of the town,” Legolas said softly. “The rest are all in position.”

“Did you get a new guess on how many we’re dealing with here?” Tauriel asked the Durins.

Kili hesitated. “More than we originally expected,” he said. “It seems Smaug has been busy making fledglings out of the humans his creatures drained. By now they must have somewhere in the four-hundreds.”

Tauriel’s fist tightened on her stake. They had suspected such a tactic, as it had been with Azog: they would turn as many humans as possible, but without draining them fully. They would die within a week, but Smaug needed nor wanted them no longer than that. “They’ll be weak,” she said. “Half-mad, and in pain.”

“But formidable nonetheless,” Legolas said. “With numbers like that—”

“We’ll manage,” Kili said tightly. “If all goes well, we’ll not face them at all.”

“Won’t be long before we find out,” Thorin said grimly. He turned to the small man sitting on the log. “Bilbo. It’s time.”

The man nodded, rising to his feet and reaching out a hand. Thorin took it, guided it to his arm. He shot one final look at Tauriel, Legolas and Kili. His face did not vary much from the stone-textured frown he usually wore—she couldn’t read the sentiment in it. From Bilbo, she could read no fear. That was how she remembered them, walking arm-in-arm down the shadowy slope of the hill, towards a darkness even greater and more hungry than the one they had left. At once, it all seemed so baffling. Where were they going? Why were any of them here? How could they think of killing the only God their kind had ever known? But then Thorin and Bilbo’s backs bled into the night, and were gone, beyond recall.

And then, the waiting began again.

The silence stretched out between the three of them on the hillside, brittle, tinged with anxiety. Tauriel thought again of the map, trying to visualize her position compared to the others, trying to imagine where Thorin and Bilbo were now. At a certain point, the human needed to continue alone, lest Smaug detect Thorin’s presence too soon. Was he walking the dark streets even now, waiting for the monsters to find him? And what if they simply drank him dry? Tauriel tried to crush the questions racing through her mind, but the white crescents of her knuckles clenched on her stake gave little solace.

She felt Legolas’s regard turn towards her long before he spoke. “You don’t seem quite as gleeful as I might have expected of you on the eve of battle.”

Tauriel forced a smile. “If it eases your mind, I can cackle maniacally every so often.”

“Remarkably, I don’t think that would help.” Legolas’s stare turned shrewd. She could feel it studying her, even in the dark. “And what of Thranduil?”

“He suspects nothing.” Legolas looked as if he wanted to speak again, but he did not press her. Tauriel would have offered no excuses—if Thranduil knew she was working with the Durins, knew that they planned yet another offensive against Smaug, he would have done everything in his power to stop them. Their only chance required him to remain ignorant. But she had seen the truth in Legolas’s eyes just as she felt it, gnawing at her heart like a worm. If Thranduil knew nothing and they won, he would be forever in their debt. If Thranduil knew nothing and they lost, he would have no warning, no inkling of danger before Smaug’s retribution fell on him.

But they _would_ win. She would make sure of it. Even if their only hopes were pinned on a human, on a trick.

She tried not to think about that part of the plan. It wasn’t her part to concern herself with. All that she and her two companions had to do was wait for the signal, rush into the town, and begin the distraction. There would be fighting, but they could retreat when they needed to. Surely there was nothing to fear. Yet her heart beat colder than it ever had.

From the dark, empty windows of the town, light suddenly erupted. It flickered, yellow-orange-red. Even from this distance, Tauriel could hear the roar. That wasn’t a part of the plan. Fire was Smaug’s element.

“Is that the signal?” Kili’s voice was sharp, tense. The silence drew out. In the distance, the faint sound of crackling. It sounded like the rattle of bones.

“Something’s wrong,” Legolas said quietly. “What do we do?”

With a sick clench in her stomach, Tauriel slowly rose to her feet. Already it seemed she could feel the heat of the fire buffeting her face, warning her away. She remembered Thranduil’s scars. Strangely enough, it was that memory that steeled her at last. “If we wait, we risk losing all,” she said. “We have to move. Now.”

After a brief moment of hesitation she felt Kili and Legolas rise to stand next to her. There was nothing more to do. Moving on swift feet, she ran towards the blaze and tightened her hand on her stake.

They would win. They had to.

 

* * *

 

_Paris. 1895._

“So how did it happen?”

Tauriel stretched out on the low couch, which Thranduil had informed her was called a _chaise longue_ , and she had pretended she wasn’t listening. It had been almost forty years since he had turned her. He had lost the sharp edge of awe that hung around him in the first few years, the kind with which an infant might regard its parent. She’d grown since then. She wanted him to know that.

Which was why she asked the question, so casually, as if it meant nothing to either her or him. He did not ask her to clarify what she meant. For the first time in their relationship—and it seemed so long to Tauriel then, longer than her lifetime—she had seen him go hungry. For the first time, she had seen his scars.

Food had been hard to come by on the passage from England to Paris, for they would not reduce themselves to rats, but to be caught was to be cornered with nowhere but the water to go. It was not such a long voyage that they could not survive it. But Tauriel’s skin had grown grey and lifeless, and Thranduil—well, his skin had taken on a very different nature, as the long hours of a bloodless night crept on. They had not spoken. It had been a different place, somewhere darker where a casual word could have upset the balance of the world. But now, in the cheery light of their Paris apartment, such questions seemed light and amusing things. Tauriel would get a story out of it, and that would be that.

Thranduil did not answer her at first. She had grown accustomed to waiting for him to frame his replies. He always took his time when he wanted to, for time was one thing he always had—he was full of it, like a cup held under a waterfall, years running into and over him and changing nothing.

Tauriel was not so old, nor so patient. The silence went on too long, and she spoke again. “Wandering in your dreams again, are you? I asked where you got your sc—”

“I know what you asked.” Thranduil’s voice broke over her like the crack of a whip, severing the word in her mouth. He did not look at her—she could not see his face. He was turned towards the window, where the darkness of the night waited patiently outside. A moment ago Tauriel had thought it enticing, a sheaf of black velvet framed by fine curtains, waiting to envelope her. Yet now it seemed to carry the weight of the dark water that had borne them here, all that cold and heaviness bearing down on her, held at bay only by the delicate frame of the window, the gossamer hang of the curtains.

“It is you who don’t know what you asked,” Thranduil said, his voice quieter but no kinder. He was somewhere far away, too, further than the choppy waters of the sea, further even than the greatest terror and darkness Tauriel had ever experienced: the night when she died, the night when she was born. Whatever Thranduil brooded on had happened long before she existed. It was bigger than her. In its shadow she was nothing.

Anger flared, coming on as hot and sudden as a wild blowing the smoke and embers of a nearby wildfire. She sat up in her chair, her fists clamped on her knees. “I’ve been what you made me for longer than I was human,” she snapped. “You can’t keep these things from me, like I’m a child.”

Slowly, Thranduil’s head turned. It was only then that Tauriel realized she had stepped too far.

A smile touched his mouth, pried it open and showed his teeth. “But of course,” he said quietly. “You’re completely right.”

If Tauriel’s anger was a wind, then Thranduil’s was the fire. Yet his face was calm as he stepped towards her, and sat on the couch beside her. He was dangerous. He always was—but that was simply a fact that Tauriel knew, and it did not often occur to her. It occurred to her now. She did not just know it—she felt it, in the languid movement of his muscles, the predatory laziness that hung about him. It was the slowness that promised a sudden and inescapable attack. She sat silent, frozen, transfixed, like a rat in a cobra’s eyes.

“I could tell you,” he began, “of a time long before your birth and death. The story would contain many people you would not know, and places you are not familiar with, and old pains you cannot imagine; and so the story would bore you, though it would give you an answer to your question, because you are too young to truly care for anything beyond your own being.

“So I will not tell you that story,” Thranduil continued, his voice stretching on inevitably in the yellowed light. “I will tell you a story that will interest you: a story about yourself.”

Normally Tauriel might have interrupted, protested—or laughed, reminding him that she cared for others quite keenly when the hunger swelled every night. But she was caught in a current, drifting helplessly towards something that waited for her, as if the window was growing closer, with its darkness that still frightened her, sometimes, even though it was only the last dying spasms of humanity twitching in her breast. Thranduil sat between her and the darkness. If she drifted, he was waiting downstream, his arms opened wide, like the forelegs of a pale spider, to catch her. 

“It does not begin tonight,” he said. “In part, it began when you were born—the first birth, when you came from blood before returning to it—but that is not the part of the story that matters. That part hasn’t happened yet: it waits for you, somewhere in the snarled tangle of years before you. It is not the end of the story. Our stories are long, tiresome things, that seem close to ending again and again. Yet always there is another chapter, and no resolution.”

He fell silent, his eyes dark and distant, staring off into his own tangled past. They had fell well that night, but it seemed that the ghosts of the scars Tauriel had so blithely asked after darkened the curve of his cheek.

“When the time comes, you will forget what you are,” he said at last. His voice was harsher now, and faster, as if he wanted to speak as quickly as possible so that he would never have to speak again. “You will believe in a future that you cannot have—you will think that you may act, and your actions may shape a better path for yourself. But change is for humans to wrought. We can only preserve, trapped in our own amber, becoming harder and stiller as the centuries whirl by.”

His hand settled on the side of Tauriel’s face. Her skin was as smooth as it had been the night he turned her. His palms had not been touched by the centuries. For a moment, Tauriel forgot her fear. She felt only a distant numbness, a void filled with cold and longing. And then, as Thranduil let hand fall, it disappeared just as quickly.

“You will chase this dream,” he said in grey tones, “and through it, you will lose everything. It is only then that you will understand what fate has truly befallen you. Only then will you understand what it means to be a vampire.”

He turned away. It seemed he had moved, gotten further and further away from her, though still he was sitting at her side. He stared into the window holding back its burden of solid darkness. “But still, you will try,” he sighed. “Every one of us does. And in the end, we all burn for it.”


	20. Chapter 20

“When will Da be back?”

Sigrid stood with her back to the table and tried not to spill the carton of orange juice all over the kitchen counter. It wasn’t that her hands were shaking. Her entire body felt like a weathervane in storm winds—the slightest disturbance would send her spinning out of control. But she finished pouring without spilling a drop, and when she turned around to face her younger sister at the table, her smile might even have been convincing.

“The note he left didn’t say,” Sigrid said, setting a glass before Tilda. “But it sounded like he was planning on staying at the garage until the afternoon.” The second glass went before Bain’s place at the table. It was empty. Her brother was leaning on the other counter, his arms crossed over his chest as he frowned at nothing.

Tilda spun her glass of juice in circles on the table, making tracks of condensation on the battered wood. “Da’s always here for breakfast,” she complained.

“Not today,” Sigrid said. Her voice sounded sharper than she intended. In her lap under the table, her fingernails dug into her palms.

She had known their father was gone from the moment she woke up that morning. There’d been no shuffling of clumsy early-morning footsteps from below. No muffled rattle of silverware or gurgle of the coffee maker, no scrape of a chair and rustle of a book’s pages. It was as if her room was floating on a cloud of silence, of emptiness.

Sigrid forced herself to grip her glass of orange juice to her lips and drink what she could. There was already a shadow on Tilda’s face, that childhood intuition prickling despite Sigrid’s assurances. Bain didn’t need intuition. He knew very well that there had been no note.

One thought was the only thing keeping Sigrid sane: their father was okay, because he had to be. Once she had forced that fact upon herself, chewed it up and swallowed it, she could let it churn in her stomach where no one else would know about it.

“I’m sure he’ll be back soon,” Sigrid lied.

Tilda looked up at her with a suddenly hopeful expression, her glass of orange juice untouched. “So, since Da’s not here… can I have coco puffs for breakfast? Even though it’s not a weekend?”

Sigrid forced another smile, but this one came a little easier. “You know what, sure. As big a bowl as you want.”

A tentative smile touched Tilda’s lips. “What about ice cream instead of milk?”

“Don’t push your luck.”

“ _Vanilla_ ice cream? That’s basically milk.”

Sigrid got the box off the top of the fridge, aware of Bain sidling up under the pretense of grabbing the milk. “Should we call again?”

Every time they’d called both Bard’s cell and work number, they’d gotten nothing but the canned message. “Not yet,” Sigrid said. “We don’t want Tilda to think there’s anything wrong.”

“But there _is_ something wrong,” Bain hissed, and turned away before Sigrid could argue.

The minutes limped by. Every few seconds Tilda would look up and stared out the doorway to the kitchen as if expecting Bard to walk through it at any minute. Sigrid found herself doing the same. Da was always here at breakfast. The dry silence of the coffeemaker seemed to pour a sense of wrong-ness into the air, unscented by the grounds and half-burnt toast her father always had for breakfast. Bain leaned on the other counter, pointedly not eating.

And then, like a tiny hammer shattering a glass bell, the phone rang.

Bain made it to the phone first. “Hello?” From the way his face lit up, Sigrid knew who it was. “Da! Where are you? We’ve been waiting—” He paused. From the line Sigrid could hear the metallic reproduction of her father’s voice. There was a pause. Then Bain asked, in a voice too slow and careful, “Are you okay?” The metallic babbling started up again. The brightness in Bain’s eyes faded the longer the noise went on. “Okay. Yeah. Of course. No, we will. I’ll do that. Great. Bye.”

He turned back to the table where Sigrid and Tilda sat. “That was Da.”

Sigrid studied his face. “Is everything…?”

Bain shrugged, an unconvincing display. “He said he had a long night at the garage, and fell asleep there.”

“Will he be back for breakfast?” Tilda chimed in.

Bain looked at his youngest sister. “He’s gonna be at the shop for a while longer. He told us to get you to school without him.”

“Oh.” Tilda looked down at her bowl of cereal, already turning into soggy white-brown porridge.

“We’ll have breakfast for dinner tonight,” Sigrid said quickly. “Da can make those chocolate-banana pancakes he does.”

Tilda wrinkled her nose. “He always burns them.”

“Wouldn’t be Da’s pancakes otherwise,” Sigrid said with as convincing a smile as she could muster.

Bain snorted without a trace of amusement. “If he’s even back by dinner,” he muttered. The weak smile that had flitted over Tilda’s face collapsed quicker than his words took to fade from the air. The anger clenching Sigrid’s stomach was just as immediate.

She grabbed Bain’s arm and pulled him out of the room, though he didn’t resist at all. “What are you doing?” she whispered as soon as they were out of Tilda’s earshot. “Are you _trying_ to traumatize her?”

Bain glared at the floorboards. “You know it might be true.”

Sigrid grabbed her brother’s arm, forcing his gaze into her own. “Tilda hasn’t had to deal with this stuff like we have,” she snapped. “She was too young to remember what Da was like back then. Do you really want to make her go through what we went through?”

She saw a muscle in the side of Bain’s check twitch. “No. Of course not.”

“Then I suggest you find some optimistic lie to tell as soon as you set foot in that kitchen again, and make sure you smile while telling it,” Sigrid said. She almost turned on her heel and stormed back into the kitchen without another word, but something in Bain’s face held her fast. He was just as scared as Tilda was, really. Sometimes it was easy to forget that he was still just a kid too.

Sigrid took a breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell. It’s just… I’m scared too, you know?”

Bain nodded. There was a strange look in his eyes, a jumpiness Sigrid didn’t like. “Da sounded awful on the phone.”

Sigrid’s teeth clamped down on the hard, bitter words that shriveled her tongue. For Bain’s sake, she’d give their father the benefit of the doubt. “Well, if we was working all night he probably would.”

“Sig, he sounded _hung-over_.” Her brother’s face tightened, struggling to express an emotion his soft, round face was still too young to capture. Automatically Sigrid reached out, about to offer the same make-it-better hug that had got them through so much in the past. But the shadow passed over Bain’s face, or dissolved into it. His eyes were hard, but resolved.

“Are you sure?” Sigrid asked. She had to know.

Bain shrugged. “I remember what he was like. On those mornings after Ma.”

Sigrid almost winced. There had only been a couple times that their father had tried to trap his grief in a bottle. He would just disappear into his room for a while, and Sigrid would wait at his door for the dead-eyed, father-shaped thing to come shuffling out, waiting for it to truly be her father again. Those days before Bard pulled himself together hadn’t lasted long. She had hoped that Bain had been too young to remember.

“This is bad, isn’t it?” Bain said, and the first note of real misery crept into his voice. “God, if anyone knew he’d been out all night, drinking, and left his kids unsupervised…”

“I’m eighteen,” Sigrid said quickly. “Technically an adult. I think that makes it legal.”

“But it doesn’t make it right.”

Sigrid had nothing to say to that. “He’s a good dad,” she said at last, as if saying it allow to reassure herself. Her voice didn’t even sound like her own. It sounded through the years, and she was just a girl wondering how her mother could have been dashed off the surface of the earth, and how so much of her father had gone away with her. 

Bain nodded. “I know he is. But maybe… maybe even he needs help sometimes too.” He paused. “Sig,” he said at last, “we’re going to have to do something, aren’t we?”

For the first time in a long time, Sigrid wanted to tell him no. She wanted it to be someone else’s problem—why should it be them? Hadn’t they, their family, been through enough? Why was Da _doing_ this to them all? Bain was just a kid. She wasn’t so far from it herself. And yet, if they did nothing, who else was there?

Who else.

Sigrid looked at her brother. Some quiet, powerful thing had shifted in the air between them. Sigrid felt it—a bomb had been armed. She felt very tired. “Yeah. I guess we are.”

 

* * *

 

Less than an hour later Sigrid had walked Tilda to the bus stop at the end of the street and made sure she got on board safely. Sigrid walked back to the house, shut the door. She found Bain waiting for her in the living room. She sat down in on the chair across from him, feeling more tired than she thought possible.

“So,” she said, rubbing a hand over her face, “I take it you’re not going to school either.”

Bain raised his hand in a listless, ambivalent gesture.

“Okay. Then let’s get started.” Sigrid leaned forward. “Da’s in trouble. We’ve know that for a while.”

Slowly, Bain nodded. It was hard sometimes for Sigrid to reign herself in from the fevered excitement of finally talking about this, the questions that had been boiling in her mind for months. This wasn’t going to be easy, talking like this. It felt like betraying the only parent they had left. And yet Sigrid _needed_ to speak. She’d been silent too long.

Her thoughts drove her to her feet and sent her pacing across the living room floor. “I’ve been paying attention,” she said. “He’s out at night, sometimes all night, and he lies about what he’s doing and where he’s been. When he’s around, he’s distracted, unfocused. He’s secretive. He’s stressed. And he’s spending more and more time with _him_.” She didn’t need to clarify.

Bain stared at her flatly. “You know what all of that points towards, right?” When Sigrid didn’t respond, Bain sighed. “It’s obvious, Sig. Da’s having an affair.”

Sigrid blinked. “As much as he denies it, we both know he and Thranduil are a thing, but… he can’t be having an affair, Bain. Da isn’t married anymore.”

“But do you think Da remembers that? You know he’s still in love with Ma. He _never_ stopped missing her. Now that he’s finally seeing someone else…” Bain shrugged. “It’s the guilt that’s getting to him.”

Sigrid shook her head, heart beating fast. “It’s more than that. It has to be. What about all the lies?”

“Fine then,” Bain said, throwing his hands up in the air. “What do you want me to say? That he’s Breaking Bad?”

“This is serious, Bain!”

“And I’m being serious. Every other possibility is too ridiculous to consider. Maybe it’s a bad relationship—but Da can take care of himself. Maybe _Thranduil_ is the one who’s married—but he’s been living in town for months, and no one’s come looking for him. Maybe, maybe, maybe—what else is there?”

“What about the paranoia?” Sigrid said. “For a while he wouldn’t even open the windows after sundown, let alone go outside. All those weird rules—”

“Almost as if he was concerned for our safety?” Bain shot back. “Like maybe he was afraid of losing us, too?”

Sigrid looked away. “There’s something else,” Sigrid said. “I met someone out in the woods one night, when I went for a run. She followed me. Made sure I went home. I think she was watching the house—she said she knew Thranduil, but she didn’t seem to like him.”

“In a jilted-lover sort of way?” Bain pressed.

“No. I can’t really explain it.” Sigrid’s eyes wandered aimlessly to the window, still sheathed behind its blinds; pale morning light made the gaps into bars. “I feel like I’ve seen her again at times, outside the house, in the woods; I’ve never spoken to her again, though. I never found out who she was.”

“Did you try and follow her?”

Sigrid shook her head. “No.”

“Why not? You’re usually very… Scooby-Doo about that kind of stuff.”

Sigrid shrugged. Her hands clenched and unclenched restlessly on her knees. “I don’t know. I guess I was sort of scared of her.”

Bain snorted. “Scared?”

“In my defense, some random woman who hangs out in the creepy woods watching our house at night isn’t exactly a thought to inspire confidence,” Sigrid snapped.

Bain shrugged. “So Thranduil has some weird friends. You don’t think you’re jumping to conclusions?”

“Not when he lies about everything he ever does! He goes out almost every night and says he’s going to the shop, but do you ever see any engine grease on his hands?”

Bain looked away. “Jeez, Sig. You’re starting to sound as paranoid as he was.”  

“ _Don’t_.” The tone snapped through the air like the crack of a whip. Sigrid sat rigidly in her chair, her hands clenched in her lap. “Do you think I don’t know that?” she hisses. “Do you think I like spying on our own _dad_ , wondering what he’s up to, wondering whether he’s even safe?” She stared down at her fists rather than meeting her brother’s gaze. Her knuckles and tendons stood up on the backs of her hands like ridges, inhospitable mountain ranges.

“But no one else is thinking about this stuff,” she said at last. “No one else is wondering where Da goes at night, or with who. No one else cares if Da is putting himself in danger.”

“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” Bain said slowly. “I hate to say it, but Da gets to choose who he spends his time with. If he wants to ‘put himself in danger’ by dating an asshole, that’s his choice. We’re just his kids. We don’t get to pick for him.”

Sigrid laughed hollowly. “Thranduil’s not an asshole, Bain. Whatever he is, it’s so much worse.”

For a long time Sigrid sat completely still—and then she was on her feet. “Well. I’m not going to sit around and wait to find out how exactly this all self-combusts.”

Bain trailed her out of the living room, his feet scuffing hurriedly on the worn floorboards. “Sig? Where are you going?” he asked as she marched to the first door on the left.

“Da’s room,” she said simply.

“Uh, don’t you think that’s a bit of a breach of privacy?” Bain said, his voice raising a little higher. “He wouldn’t be happy if he found out we had messed around with his stuff.”

“I’ve been watching him and Thranduil for months now, and gotten no closer to finding out what they’re up to,” Sigrid said as she reached their father’s door. “I need answers, Bain. We both do. Now, are you going to help, or are you going to keep watch?” She raised an eyebrow. For a moment, Bain wavered—only when he groaned in acceptance did Sigrid lay her hand on the doorknob. She paused—this door had remained shut almost at all times in the past few months. Opening it seemed as wrong as pushing back the lid of a tomb. She turned the handle and pushed it open.

The room was still dark. She raised the blinds and let the white light pour in. Neatly made bed, dresser bare but for a comb and a picture of Ma, bedside table with nothing but an alarm clock. Had their father always been this scrupulous? He certainly wasn’t the type. The room had a staged feel to it, like a hotel room.

For a moment, Sigrid hesitated again.

“What exactly are we looking for here?” Bain asked.

For a moment, Sigrid wasn’t sure what to say. She didn’t know what kind of incriminating evidence she was looking for, only that she’d know it when she saw it. But this was also worse than just a breach of privacy—she didn’t necessarily want to see the side of her father’s life kept secret from her. She had a good idea of at least what part of his relationship with Thranduil comprised of, and that was a part of his life Sigrid did not want to face. Discomfort wormed under her skin.

“Receipts. Documents. Maybe even a journal. Anything that might give us a clue as to what Da’s really been up to,” she said. “Start with the dresser. I’ll get the shelves.”

Reluctantly, Bain followed her into the room. They both avoided the bed. It stood in the middle of the room like an altar of their father’s inmost life. Had it always felt so strange, so wrong, being in this room without their father there to supervise? It was like as if part of his life had become a minefield—the part that belonged to Thranduil now.

Their first search turned up nothing but crumpled clothes, deodorant, socks. Sigrid’s eyes scanned the bedroom another time, trying to place where she would put something of great importance. At last she strode over to the bed and lifted the pillows. Nothing underneath.

“Check between the mattress and the box spring on your side,” she said, already crouching down.

“Oh come on, Sig,” Bain groaned, dallying until she shot him a look that could have cracked stone. He shuffled his feet uncomfortably. “What if we find… ugh, I don’t know… stuff Da wouldn’t want us to see. And that we wouldn’t want to see, either.”

“I’m trying not to think about that,” Sigrid said truthfully. But a thorough search turned up nothing beneath the mattress but lint.

“Check under the bed,” Sigrid said, marching up to the closet herself. Reluctantly Bain got down on his hands and knees as she pulled the door open. Her father’s wardrobe stared back at her, much more haphazard than the rest of the room—shoes had been kicked into the back of the closet and left where they lay, and there was a pile of shirts that had fallen off their hangers in the corner.

“Ugh!” Bain’s voice came from behind her. “I can’t believe how much dust is under this bed. Doesn’t Da ever vacuum?”

There was plenty of dust on the shelves above the clothing racks too, clumped around shoeboxes with labels such as “photo albums” and “kids’ toys”, the usual stuff—Sigrid stopped. There was one part where the dust had been scraped away recently or repeatedly enough that it hadn’t built up again—and that box didn’t have a label, and squatted on the shelf as ominously as a gargoyle.

“Hey Bain,” she said. “Bring that chair over.”

In a minute they had hauled the box, surprisingly heavy, down from its place on the shelf. Sigrid placed it on the bed, almost reverently, reluctant to open it all at once. Bain didn’t share her hesitation; he ripped the lid off and immediately began pulling out its contents.

Books. Whatever Sigrid had been expecting, it wasn’t that—and when she saw the subjects, it only got stranger.

“ _The Hammer of the Witches_ ,” Bain read aloud. “ _The Wampyr: A Collection of Myths. …Dracula_?” He looked at Sigrid incredulously. “Is Da writing a vampire novel, or something?”

Sigrid stared at the books thoughtfully. “No way. He’s not that lame.” Yet why else would he have these books, and have read or obtained them even more recently than photo albums with Ma? Sigrid shook her head.

“Well?” Bain looked at her expectantly. “Is this the cornucopia of answers you hoped it would be?”

Sigrid didn’t respond. She felt as if her mind were a watch that hadn’t been wound properly, slowly ticking down. None of this was making any sense. With a sigh, she looked to the bedside table. There was a single drawer in it, too small to contain anything of importance. She leaned over to nudge it open all the same. The dejected sigh caught in her throat the moment she looked inside.

Sitting in the bottom of the drawer as innocuously as a tube of chapstick was a collection of sharpened wooden sticks.

Bain stared at it. “Um,” he said. “Not meaning to push the TV thing too far, but… have you ever watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Because those things look awfully familiar.”

Hesitantly, Sigrid picked one of them up. It looked like it had been carved by hand, wood chips worried away until the point was sharper than wood had a right to be. There were four in total, lined up side by side like bullet casings. Slowly, Sigrid turned around. Sitting on the bed, among the other books, was one that had leapt out to her not for its strangeness—they were all strange—but for the fact that it didn’t seem to fit. Among all the books of lore and ancient history, a tiny, humble handbook proclaimed to teach whittling techniques to beginners. Take it from Da not to just google it.

“Okay,” she said in a crisp, businesslike tone, sitting back and rubbing her hands on her knees.  “What the hell is going on here?”

Bain was quiet for a good long while. And then he said: “Have you ever heard of _LARPing_?”

Sigrid didn’t even laugh. She brushed her hair away from her forehead and inadvertently let her head fall into her hand. “I know you’re joking, but that might genuinely be a possibility,” she said. “This is… insane.”

Bain paused. “Do you mean literally?” he said, and Sigrid didn’t have an answer.

“Keep looking in here,” she said. “There has to be something to explain all this. I’m going to check the bathroom.”

She was thorough. She lifted the lid from the toilet’s tank, and found it empty—the cabinet was a mess of empty shampoo bottles, with nothing else inside. There was more of a mess in here, too, extra containers of floss shoved against the back of the counter, a towel tossed into the sink, and a couple hanging over the shower rod—there were a lot of towels, actually. Some that must be new, as well, because Sigrid didn’t recognize them from the communal laundry bin. There was a pile of them on the floor, too, the cheap white kind you might see at a hotel. There was a box of bleach beside them. Sigrid nudged the pile with her foot, shifting it—one of the towels flopped over, revealing a dark, rust-colored stain like the opening of a mouth.

Sigrid stared at it without comprehension. Even scrubbed and bleached as it was, it was impossible not to recognize blood when she saw it.

She quickly bent down to pull the pile apart, handing the towels lightly with the tips of her fingers—they were all covered in those same gushing stains, never _quite_ red, but unmistakable. Some of it was old, based on the color. Some of it was very new. Sigrid’s heart beat faster. Books were weird. Those wooden sticks were weirder. But blood—blood was no game, no delusion. Blood was real. Blood was _frightening_. Someone had been hurt in this room, had bled, and not just a little. And they’d done it again and again. Was it her father’s? _Thranduil’s_?

“Did you find anything?” Sigrid jumped at the sound of Bain’s voice calling from the other room. She quickly tossed the towels back in their pile, and nudged them so that only white would show.

“Nothing,” she said, her voice carefully steady. “You?”

“Nothing else. Can we get out of here now?”

“Gladly.” Sigrid hurried out of the bathroom and pulled the door closed behind her, shutting the bloodied towels away. Bain didn’t seem to notice anything wrong as they hurried out of Bard’s room, and Sigrid kept her mouth shut. Maybe keeping secrets was just a habit for her now. Maybe she was just as bad as Da.

But she knew, as soon as she saw the blood, that on some level she’d been right—something was going on, and someone was bleeding for it. They were treading near dangerous ground, but what the danger was Sigrid couldn’t begin to comprehend. All she knew was that Bard was already a part of it—and she wouldn’t willingly drag the rest of her family into it with him.

Not until she figured out what the hell was going on.

 

* * *

 

A short while later Sigrid had dropped Bain off at school, despite his protestations. She drove back and deleted the canned voicemail the school had sent out, alerting the parent or guardian that she wasn’t at school. She carefully put the books back in their box, and the—the wooden stick back in the drawer. The room looked almost exactly like it had when she and Bain had searched it. She doubted Bard would know anything was different.

She was just turning back to the kitchen when the sound of keys jingling in the front door froze her in her tracks. 

She could have lunged for the kitchen doorway, slipped out the back before the front door had finished opening. But the fact was she was tired, tired of running and hiding and lying—and so she merely stood there as the door swung open and her father stepped into the front hallway.

His eyes didn’t register her at first. They didn’t seem to register anything. He looked like something dug out of a shallow grave, blanched skin and sunken eyes held in a painful squint. His movements were slow, as if he were holding something on his head and had to be careful not to dislodge it.

He had shut the door behind him and started taking off his coat when he finally realized she was there. He blinked at her owlishly even in the dim light of the hallway. “Sig?” he said. His voice was hoarse. “What are you doing here?”

The excuses caught up in Sigrid’s throat. In the end, she just shrugged. “I didn’t go to school today,” she said simply. She wasn’t sure whether she held his gaze through defiance or fear.

Bard stared at her blankly. He looked like a man listening to an earpiece, standing by, waiting for instruction. All the little arguments that had brewed between them seemed to stand by in the air. Sigrid had never been the disobedient one. She was the one you could count on, the one who would take care of everything and never complain. The thought made her hands clench at her sides.

At last, he merely shook his head and finished hanging his coat up on the rack.

“We’ll talk about this,” he said, and now his voice sounded only tired. “But later. I’m not going to make you go.” With heavy feet, Bard walked past her—heading right for his room. Sigrid watched him go, still speechless, still angry. She wanted to yell at him to yell at _her_ , to demand that he read her the riot act and ground her, that he drive her right to the front door of the school himself and make sure she trooped off to class. She wanted him to be a parent, not the beaten-down figure that walked away from her now, as slumped like a lifeless puppet.  

“Where are you going?” she asked, ignoring the shrill of fear in her voice.

“To bed,” Bard said simply as he walked into his room. “I don’t feel well.”

“Where were you this morning?”

“I’m sorry, Sig,” her father said, his voice growing quieter as he slipped out of sight. “It won’t happen again.” The door quietly shut, bottling up the silence behind it like an armed grenade. Sigrid stared at it for a long time. She wanted to pull the pin, and this time she wouldn’t be throwing herself down on the grenade. She’d hurl it as far as she could and wait for the explosion.

She turned on her heel, grabbing her own coat from the rack with numb hands, making no effort to stay quiet. If Bard wanted to stop her from storming out, she’d welcome him to try. But the door remained shut, even when the sound of car keys jingled. She slammed the door behind her. The curtains of her father’s window didn’t so much as twitch.

Sigrid drove quickly at first, taking the turns at speeds that slammed her elbows into the car door. For a moment she fantasized about getting into a horrible accident, being laid up in the hospital for weeks, and how her father would be so angry but so grateful she was alive, and they’d all come together as a family once more…

She slowed down. It was much more likely she’d get pulled over by a cop and forced to go to school; and that couldn’t happen. She had work to do.

The town library was small, a little building that huddled on its own lot of grass with a shrunken grey tree on the front lawn. The windows each had a little flowerbox, but whatever had been in them had died with the turn of winter. Sigrid parked and walked up the steps, glancing around with the paranoia that always arose from skipping school. But no teachers or police officers leapt out of the bushes, and so she hurried over the trampled welcome mat and stepped into the library’s musty warmth.

It had been so long since she had been in here—she still felt as if the magic of the children’s books she used to read here was alive in the air, lending color to the brown carpet and fluorescent lighting. She wandered the stacks, scanning labels and authors until she found what she was looking for. Before long she was sitting at a table in the back of the library with a series of books spread out around her; _Folklore of Eastern Europe; The Chubacabra and other demons; Dracula._

It was all she could find of her father’s bizarre reading list, but a couple of the older texts were online; she skimmed through passages of the _Malleus Malificarum_ on her phone while flipping past illustrations of pale face with empty eyes, dripping black blood down their narrow chins.

“This is insane,” she muttered aloud to herself. Yet if it was, then what did that make her father? She leaned back, pinching the bridge of her nose. There was no way to ignore the evidence: Bard had picked up an obsession with things that went bump in the night. She remembered his paranoia all those months ago, the blinding terror of the dark. He’d forbidden his children to go out after dark; yet now as soon as night fell he was as likely to be gone as not, and Sigrid didn’t have to guess who he was with. Something had happened, some kind of switch that had dragged their father out into the night. At the time she had been happy to see he wasn’t afraid anymore. But perhaps he should have been.

After all, she had yet to explain away the blood.

Her eyes wandered idly to the pages of the books open before her. _The Romanian Wampyr was said to be killed by hammering a nail, or wooden stake, through the heart, head, and hands of a corpse believed to be animated…  Here it is to be noted that the Devil is more eager and intent upon tempting the good rather than the wicked…. Oh, the terrible struggle that I have had against sleep so often of late; the pain of the sleeplessness, or the pain of the fear of sleep, and with such unknown horror as it has for me!..._ She didn’t believe in this stuff. But her father did—or maybe it was a cover, some kind of code? She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, the cool pressure doing little to soothe her mind. Nothing made sense anymore, but this was all she had. So with a sigh, she leaned forward, and went back to reading.

_The last I saw of Count Dracula was his kissing his hand to me, with a red light of triumph in his eyes, and with a smile that Judas in hell might be proud of…_

* * *

 

It was hours before Sigrid closed the last book. Her mind was caught in a labyrinth of paragraphs and lines, racing around the worlds of medieval woodcuts until her eyes and head ached with every heartbeat. She wasn’t sure what she had learned—if she had learned anything, really, more than the types of wood that bodies were interred in to prevent their rising from the grave, or the ways that demons would communicate with the humans they consorted with. If this was what it felt like to be inside her father’s mind, it was not a pleasant place. Perhaps not even a sane one.

But Sigrid had seen her father as close to the mental breaking point as any person could come back from, and this wasn’t anything like that. This… she had no idea what this was. But the books, the stakes (her mind still skirted around the word, though she knew it was the right one), and of course, the blood—and now that Sigrid thought about it, she had really only seen Thranduil come around after dark…

It was ridiculous. But she wasn’t laughing.

She glanced down at her phone—and to her surprise, the battery was dead. She must have been here longer than she thought. There were no windows in this part of the building, but she knew that outside the sun would be sinking beneath the tops of the trees, turning their leafless trunks into thin, jagged teeth.

Quickly she began shutting the books in front of her, closing away the unnerving text and baffling images within their bindings once again. The image of a creature with a ghastly face crouching on a woman’s chest stared at up her before she slammed it shut.

As she opened the door and stepped outside, the sky was already bruising into dark purple, with a wave of black rolling over the east. The forest was never far away in this town—it peered over the roofs of the buildings and crowded in at their backs. Sigrid could practically feel its closeness, a wild, prickling feeling on the back of her neck. She’d rarely been afraid of it before. But her mind was filled with images and ideas she couldn’t shake, the curve of long fangs glimpsed in the bottom of a coffin. She hurried to her car, keys clenched in her fingers. When she slid into the driver’s seat and locked the door behind her, she felt only a momentary sense of relief. Outside it was only getting darker.

Sigrid paused, took a breath, forced out a laugh. She was being ridiculous. She’d never liked horror movies, ghost stories, anything meant to scare her—those feelings traveled deep inside of her, like a stone dropped into water with nothing to stop it from sinking. These books, these stories her father was collecting—they all hit a little too close to home. She had to keep a level head, try to see through all this insanity to the truth. She took a breath, settled her hands on the wheel, and set off for home as night fell around her.

The branches of the trees were lit up into shades of white and grey as her headlights tracked over them. The sight reminded her of another ride, what felt like so long ago—how she’d sat beside Thranduil in her father’s car and suddenly realized that the man was dangerous. The same night she’d met that strange woman in the woods, with her red hair and her cryptic answers, and those hollow, burning eyes…

The car lurched, a turn coming faster than Sigrid had expected—she realized she’d been slowly pressing down the accelerator. With a shaky breath, she slowed down. There’d be no sense getting into a car accident now, with the dark woods all around her and help so many miles away.

She rounded the next curve, and there was something in the road.

A flash of red—

Sigrid slammed on the brakes, her body thrown forward and sideways as she swerved, the scream of tires and the pain of her head hitting the door, headlights flung out over the trees, grey hands reaching down—

Everything stilled. Sigrid sat hunched over the wheel, pain blossoming on the side of her head. There was nothing but the sound of breathing, heavy, panicked, her own. Slowly, she raised her head, peering out through the dashboard. The car had swerved into the opposite lane, nearly spinning out—she’d come to a stop at an angle over the road, facing the forest. Raising a shaking hand to her temple, Sigrid probed at the spot of pain—white spots exploded behind her eyes, but after a moment they faded. She was okay. Just a bruise, it had to be. She’d drive the rest of the way home, and her father would be angry but he’d get her ice and a bandage and by the end of the night they’d be watching TV together, and things would be normal, they would be—

_But what had she seen in the road?_

The hairs on the back of Sigrid’s neck rose. She’d felt no impact against her car. Whatever it was, it could still be out there. Was it standing in the middle of the road, watching her? Slowly, each vertebrae grinding, Sigrid turned her head to look through the darkness of the back seat, beyond the rear window, to the road painted red in the glow of her taillights. Something hunched out there, a wounded posture, but clearly human. Sigrid’s heart dropped through the bottom of her stomach. Oh god. What had she done?

She was out of the door and running down the road before she even knew what she was doing. Her taillights painted the road a hellish red, but the figure was on its feet.

“Are you okay?” The figure was doubled over in the middle of the road, silent, and in the light of the taillights everything looked red, but there was something about that hair…

The woman’s head rose like a marionette on a string. The eyes didn’t stare at Sigrid. They looked beyond.

“Get down,” the woman groaned.

Sigrid didn’t get down. She did what any person would do: she followed the woman’s gaze. She turned around.

At first there was nothing but the trees. Ahead of her, the car headlights turned them all into piano keys, trunks lit up to the color of bone with utter blackness between them. And then suddenly they weren’t piano keys at all, but teeth, long, white teeth, and Sigrid wasn’t staring into them but through them from a place near the back of the throat, already swallowed. And that’s when she saw the shapes.

Something seized her from behind in a grip like cold iron, grabbing her arm and yanking her back. She fell backwards, hitting the asphalt with the heels of her hands as the woman stepped between her and the tree line. There was a strange sound in the air, something so low and guttural it couldn’t be human, and wasn’t. Sigrid knew that fact, clearly and irrevocably, in the seconds before the monsters came tearing out of the forest on all fours and lunged at the woman before her. _Not human._

The scream tore out of her before she could help it, and then she was scrambling backwards, back down the road, trees leaning up above her on either side. Snarls and yowls echoed over the road, and she wouldn’t look, she couldn’t look. She couldn’t seem to get to her feet, so all she could do was keep crawling, white shapes rushing out at her from the darkness, the sight replaying over and over in her mind, images from the books melding with what she had seen, becoming one. She was asleep. She was still in the library. This couldn’t be real, it _couldn’t_ be—

Movement near the edge of the trees stopped her short. She froze, breath coming hard and fast in her chest, as something pale nosed its way out of the darkness of the tree line. There was no light from the headlights here. Only the creeping of one grey darkness on another, moving closer, closer, with a faint watery moan building in the back of its throat. Sigrid couldn’t move. _It isn’t real. I’m asleep. And when you die in a dream, you wake up—that’s all that will happen. I’m going to wake up._

The figure drew closer. And then it lunged.

Sigrid squeezed her eyes shut—

And then something rushed over her, a blur of movement, a terrible noise so loud and so close—and the next thing to touch her skin was soft and light and everywhere. Without thinking, Sigrid opened her eyes.

There was snow in the air, falling in tiny, gentle whorls against the darkness of the sky. But the smell was of dead fire, wood all emptied-out. The snow was on Sigrid’s clothes and hands and face, and she could taste it, that dust-bones-burning coating her tongue and her nose. She coughed, and it wasn’t just her breath that rose like a fog in the air before her.

The woman stepped forward, rising over her like a totem. She was covered in grey as well, a coating so fine it dusted her eyelashes. Sigrid stared up at her without comprehension. She was awake. She was alive.

“You’re welcome,” the woman said, and next thing Sigrid knew she was being yanked to her feet, half-supported when her legs refused to take her weight. “Come on. There’s no time. We have to cross your threshold.”

Sigrid was dragged along in the woman’s wake by a grip on her wrist. She realized her mouth was making shapes, the word what, over and over, but she wasn’t sure what she was trying to ask and the woman wasn’t listening.

“You need to drive,” she said, pushing Sigrid up to the still-open driver’s side door. “My leg is injured.”

Sigrid let herself be maneuvered into the chair. For the five seconds between her door closing and the passenger door opening, it was as if nothing had happened. Only the violent shake in her hands, clenched in her lap, showed anything was different than it had been just two minutes before. And then the passenger side door opened. And the monster was inside with her.

“I said drive,” the woman growled. “Do you want more of those things to catch up with us?”

Sigrid’s hands fumbled for the keys before her brain could make the decision for her. She felt the woman’s eyes on her, feral, as piercing as a hawk’s. By some miracle she managed to turn the key and start the engine once again. From there, she couldn’t move. Her mind was tumbling over the edge of a precipice, spinning out into oblivion, but of one thing she was utterly sure—she knew this woman. She’d met her in the woods. There was no way Sigrid could forget that red hair, matted and dirtied as it was, or those eyes, those awful eyes, not human, not even close—

“I said _drive!_ ” the woman snarled, reaching out to wrench the wheel back into alignment. Sigrid cried out, flinching away, and then the woman’s hands were closed over her throat. Those burning eyes hung before hers, inches away—Sigrid was pinned to the seat behind her by more than the grip on her flesh.

“I am not going to hurt you,” the woman said, speaking each word slowly. “But what is currently following me, not far behind, will not be so accommodating. We’ll only be safe once we’ve reached your dwelling. Do you understand?” There was nothing to do but nod. At last, the grip on Sigrid’s neck released, and the woman lurched backwards into the passenger seat.

“Then drive. As fast as you can, and straight for home.”

Sigrid put her shaking hands to the wheel and did as she was told.

The woman had dragged the scent of the forest in with her, wet earth and rot mingling with something else—ash, Sigrid thought, her eyes darting out to steal glances at the woman—if that’s what she was—sitting beside her. It felt surreal. Sigrid was sure that in a moment she would look, and the seat would be empty—she’d be alone. But she wasn’t alone. She felt the woman’s gaze on her as heavily as a sack of bricks, pressing her chest down, making it hard to breathe.

“Is this really happening?” she said aloud. She hardly recognized her own voice. Terror had warped it.

“Yes,” the woman said. “And you’d best stay calm, if you want to see your family again. Just drive. Don’t stop or slow down for anything.” 

“Who are you?” Sigrid whispered.

The woman blinked at her slowly, as if struggling to focus her mind. “Are you asking for a name, or an explanation?”

“Both.”

The woman sighed, slumped a little lower in her chair and then went rigid with a grimace of pain. Her hand flew to her leg, as if reaching to stop up a leak. Something dark and viscous had turned the fabric of her pants gummy near the knee. Sigrid thought she could smell it now too, a bitter, acrid scent.

“Suppose there’s no use in keeping it from you now,” the woman said dully. “Soon they will be no hiding it.” She turned to look out the window, watching the tree trunks racing by and dissolving into darkness. “My name is Tauriel,” she said at last. “Your father knows me; though he’d be unlikely to give a character reference.”

“And what the hell are you doing here? What happened to you? _What_ —” The question— _what are you?_ —died on Sigrid’s lips. She couldn’t face that. Not yet.

Tauriel considered her words. “There are some—people coming after me, and they’ll be after Thranduil and your father too.”

“After you? After them?” Sigrid repeated shrilly. “What do you mean? Is it money? Drugs?”

“Don’t be a fool,” Tauriel snapped, though her sharp gesture quickly turned into a groan, clutching at her leg. “You saw what was coming out of the woods,” she said through gritted teeth. “You know it isn’t drugs.”

Sigrid’s head felt as if it were light enough to sail off her shoulders. She wanted to slow down, to catch her breath, but the memory of those things rushing at her kept the accelerator close to the floor. “Is this because of Thranduil?” she said. “Has he put my father in danger?”

Tauriel laughed, a surprising, painful sound. “No. Yes. But this time, it was me. It was my fault, through and through.” Her eyes closed. Those pale dirty hands rose to her face, and pressed over it—there was no sound of crying, no movement at all—just stillness, and the posture so like that of an angel on a tombstone. For some reason it frightened Sigrid more than anything the woman had said before.

She dug her fingernails into the material of the steering wheel, and drove.

It seemed that the rest of her eternity was defined by the fixtures of that car ride—the smell of earth and rot, the lingering touch of Tauriel’s fingers on her neck, the constant jangle of Sigrid’s nerves, no, her _instincts_ telling her go, run, there’s a predator nearby. These weren’t the answers Sigrid had wanted when she set out to find them today. She wasn’t even sure they were answers at all. All she could do was drive, checking her rear view mirror frequently, but though she thought she caught a flash of movement at times, the road behind her was always empty.

When they pulled up in front of Sigrid’s house she nearly collapsed on the wheel, all the strength gone out of her body. But then the driver’s side door opened and Tauriel was yanking her out of the car, practically dragging Sigrid behind her. Was there rustling in the woods nearby, or was that the pounding of blood in her ears? Sigrid stumbled, nearly fell. Something growled, and it wasn’t in her imagination. Adrenaline helped her lunge the rest of the way up the porch steps, and the door was opening before her hand touched the handle.

She practically collapsed onto her brother as he stood in the doorway—she yanked him into a hug before she even knew what she was doing, so just to see his face. Tilda was flitting around them both—her sibling’s frantic questions flew over Sigrid’s head. For a moment she could say or do nothing. But then she pulled back, tried to stop her violent shaking, looked Bain in the eyes. She’d smeared ash all over his clothes.

“What happened?” he asked her. “Where were you? God, what’s all over your skin—”

“Bain,” she said, “where’s Da?”

“He’s out looking for you. God, I’d better call him—”

Bain pulled out his phone and hit their father on speed-dial. Sigrid turned around. Tauriel was standing in the doorway, framed against a patch of night. Outside, it seemed that something was twitching. Like pieces of the forest coming alive.

“Who is that?” Tilda whispered to her, pressing closer and staring up at Tauriel’s significant height.

Sigrid had no answer. In the clear light of the house, Sigrid could see Tauriel’s face clearly. It was streaked with ash and mud, and she was leaning heavily on the doorframe—but she didn’t step inside. Her eyes darted over her shoulder, picking out the moving shapes as they stirred closer, wary, or perhaps just curious. Sigrid could hear the phone ringing where it was pressed to her brother’s ear, a plaintive sound.

“What’s out there?” Bain said, taking a step forward. Sigrid grabbed his arm, stopping him short. Her jaw was too tight to speak. At once the ringing stopped and a tinny voice sounded from the other end of the phone, frantic. “Da, I’ve got her right here,” Bain cried. “Yes, she’s—well, I don’t know if she’s fine, but—no, she’s not hurt.” He met Sigrid’s eyes. “Here she is.”

Sigrid grabbed the phone like it was a lifeline, her eyes scarcely leaving the woman on their threshold. The movement beyond the trees hadn’t stopped. Forms twitched and darted away like maggots in a hunk of dark meat. “Get Tilda upstairs and stay there with her,” she said, allowing no time for Bain to argue. “Da?” Her voice shook, but she didn’t care.

“Sigrid, thank god.” She squeezed her eyes shut again the flood of emotion her father’s voice dredged up. “Are you alright? I was so worried—”

“Da,” Sigrid said shrilly. Tauriel had turned around, and Sigrid could see the tension in her shoulders as she stared at the darkness outside. “I can’t explain to you right now, but—you need to come home. Right now.”

“Tell him to bring Thranduil,” Tauriel said tightly.

“What are you—who was that speaking?” Bard’s voice had taken on a sharper quality. _He knows something._ Sigrid wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or angry.

“She says she’s a friend of Thranduil’s,” Sigrid said. “Something’s happening. Something’s in the woods—”

At once Tauriel spun around to face her. She looked as if she were about to step inside, moving forward—but then she stopped, bracing her hands on the doorframe but never crossing it. Her eyes met Sigrid’s.

“You need to invite me in.” Her voice was as tight as the set of her shoulders, but there was something new in her eyes—a hint of fear.

“Sigrid.” Her father’s voice on the other end of the line was flat. “Don’t do it. Don’t invite her in.”

“What?” Sigrid’s eyes were locked on Tauriel. Her eyes kept darting to the forest behind. The door was open—if the woman wanted to come in, couldn’t she simply step forward?

“Sigrid, I need you to trust me. Do not tell her she can come in. Do you understand me?”

Tauriel bared her teeth, teeth which did not seem to be the proper size or shape. “Damnit Bard,” she snarled. “Don’t do this to me!”

“Sigrid, I don’t know what she’s told you, but don’t let her convince you that she won’t hurt you.” From the other end of the line Sigrid could hear another voice—Thranduil’s?—saying something very fast and very urgently. Distantly, as if he was covering the mouthpiece, she heard her father’s voice in a deadly hiss: _“I am not letting her inside with my children.”_

“She—she—” _She saved my life_ , Sigrid wanted to say, but the words didn’t line up properly. Had she really? Or was she merely saving it for her own? The darkness seemed to be creeping closer, pressing in on the light from the house. Soon, the bubble would burst, and the darkness would come rushing in.

Tauriel’s eyes locked on her own. “Please,” she whispered. “He’s coming. I can feel him—”

“Close the door, Sigrid.” Her father’s voice was firm, yet there was a note of fear in it. The phone was slick in Sigrid’s hand. There was nowhere else for her to look but Tauriel, no reassurance to seek but herself. Her hand tightened on the phone so hard it seemed like it would break. When she looked into Tauriel’s eyes, she didn’t know what she saw—but the shapes that crept closer were creeping faster as well. Something howled. It sounded almost human. And then—

A rush forward—

“You can come in,” Sigrid said, the words spilling past her lips almost before she could think. At once Tauriel dove forward, falling over the threshold and almost crashing into Sigrid. The shadows were spilling onto the porch, right up to the open door—there was a brief second when something stood right on the threshold, all waxy skin hanging loose on its frame, mouth too-large and gnashing—Sigrid froze, every inch of her body too paralyzed to scream, and the creature stood motionless, watching—and then, faster than Sigrid could comprehend, Tauriel’s hand darted out and planted a length of wood in the middle of the monster’s chest. By the time its figure had begun to crumble to ash, Tauriel had already slammed the door.

“ _Holy shit!_ ”

It was then that Sigrid heard the screaming. She whirled around to see Bain at the foot of the steps on the other end of the hallway, his eyes as wide as dinner plates. Tilda crouched behind him, her hands thrown up over her mouth. She stared out at the dark window glass of the front door, at the grey insubstantial shapes that moved just beyond. Tauriel yanked the blinds closed. Sigrid stared at her siblings, helpless, paralyzed.

“Get her upstairs,” she cried, and Bain struggled to obey.

“Sigrid? Honey, are you there? Are you okay?” The phone had slipped from Sigrid’s fingers. She hurriedly picked it up. “Da, I’m alright,” she said, though her voice trembled much worse than before. Tauriel stood just a couple paces away, watching her. Sigrid cut through the outpouring from the other end of the phone. “There’s something outside the house. Hurry. And make sure Thranduil is with you.” Pressing ‘end call’ was one of the hardest motions of her life, but she knew what she had to do. Her father’s voice was cut short. She put the phone away.

She could feel her body trembling as she met Tauriel’s eyes. There was no sympathy there. No humanity. She leaned against the wall, weight off her injured leg, and regarded Sigrid with an expression of wary curiosity. The same expression a wolf might fix on an injured deer.

Sigrid took a shaking breath. She was exhausted, body, mind, and soul. But beneath it all, the fire that had been smoldering in her for months on end was building into an inferno. And it was ravenous.

“It seems I just saved your life,” she said quietly. “We have a little time before my father gets here. I want answers. Starting with what exactly you and Thranduil are.”

Tauriel smiled. It was sharp.


	21. Chapter 21

Bard was not sure he had ever driven faster in his life.

From the moment he had heard Tauriel’s voice on the other end of Sigrid’s phone, panic had seized his heart like a hawk on a mouse and had been squeezing more painfully by the minute. His grip on the wheel was white-knuckled. His eyes darted from the road to the trees to the shadows between the trees, hardly seeing any of it. He leaned forward against his seatbelt like a carthorse pulling up a hill. His entire being strained towards the house waiting at the end of the dark road, where his children waited for his arrival under the care of a monster who would sooner eat them than quiet their fears.

“Bard. Bard, listen to me.” Bard could feel Thranduil’s eyes on him from the passenger seat, intent, unblinking. His presence in the car made Bard feel as if something painfully cold was pressed against his skin, and he couldn’t worm away. And yet, when Sigrid had neither returned home or answered any of his calls by the time the sun sank below the trees, Bard had picked up his phone and dialed Thranduil’s number without hesitation.

He was trying not to think about the fact that in the worst kind of crisis, the person he had reached for first had been Thranduil. That he had done so without question. That even now, he knew there was no one more capable of helping Bard protect his family, though of course, Bard was already paying his price.

Bard’s neck ached, a new place, just to the side of his jaw. He pushed the accelerator down harder, the trees whipping by his headlights so quickly they seemed to flash like a camera’s shutter.

“We can’t go to your house,” Thranduil said.

Bard kept his eyes on the road, though they narrowed, ever so slightly. “Like hell we can’t.”

“Your children will be safe over the threshold of the house. _We_ will not have the same benefit—we may have to fight our way in.”

“How can you say that my children are safe when they’re trapped with _her_?” Bard cried.

“Tauriel will not hurt them,” Thranduil said, enunciating every word carefully. “Not because of any tenderness on her part, but because she knows what I will do to her if she lays a finger on you or yours.”

“She should worry more about what I will do to her,” Bard said. His hands moved the wheel in short jerks, correcting and overcorrecting, his muscles made tight and useless with tension. He wasn’t just afraid of what Tauriel might do to his children. He was terrified of what she might _say_ , and what they might glimpse outside the safety of the house’s windows.

He’d tried to keep the truth for them for so long. Every parent lies to their children, he’d tried to tell himself. Sometimes you had to. Sometimes, the truth was more cruel. But it never did feel like kindness when he met his children’s eyes and pushed down the horrible truths in exchange for a more palatable fiction. Which would they refuse to forgive him for—the lies, or what they were hiding?

A bend in the road leapt out at him, trees reaching to pull him in. He swerved, passing the mid-line before righting the car once again. Now, Thranduil’s gaze was much sharper. “Bard. Slow down.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Bard snapped.

“Who will you help if you send this car careening into a tree miles from home?” Thranduil said.

“Who will I help if I can’t get there in time?” Bard couldn’t even bring himself to feel ashamed of the tremor in his voice. He dug his nails into the steering wheel and struggled to keep the car in its lane. “What is Tauriel doing there? Who’s coming after her? Why would she lead them to my house?”

Thranduil shook his head. “It could be scouts who caught her off-guard—we’re ready for them, Bard. We’ll do to them what we did to Azog, but first we need our weapons.”

“We have a set of stakes in the back of the truck,” Bard said.

“It won’t be enough.”

“It’ll have to be.”

“You aren’t thinking clearly.”

“Of course I’m not! My children are in danger, God knows what they’ve _seen_ —”

A very pointed hesitation. “Is that the only reason?” Thranduil said at last.

Bard swallowed. His throat felt very dry—and no matter how many glasses of water he’d downed in the bathroom after waking for the second time that day, he could still taste the sour edge of wine on his tongue.

“Your behavior last night was… concerning,” Thranduil continued. “As it is now.”

Bard laughed hollowly. He didn’t slow the car. “Not so fun, is it? Wondering how someone is going to tug on your strings.”

“It’s not my strings I’m worried about. I’m worried about yours.”

“Don’t play that with me,” Bard snapped. “All you care about is that I’m alive and accessible—” He broke off and struggled to reign in his breathing, which stabbed at his lungs in short, erratic bursts. “We are _not_ doing this right now,” he said at last.

Without moving, speaking, or altering his expression, something about Thranduil changed. At once he was no longer sitting passively in his seat. He was coiled. Sharpened. Ready to strike. “No?” he said. “Then when?”

“When I say so.”

“How convenient for you. I’m sure that as soon as this is over, you’ll be more than eager to sit down and discuss what happened last night.” Thranduil’s voice was as dry as desert grass, a spark away from going up in flames. As he spoke, his hand reared up like a cobra, reaching out to brush Bard’s hair away from his neck, away from the scar. “How you stuck a shard of broken glass into your neck in order to make me drink, and how you had me down on my knees—”

“ _Don’t_.” The car jolted as Bard yanked away, tires squealing, nearly fish-tailing into the ditch at its side before he managed to right it. His heart was pounding hard, but it wasn’t from the near-averted crash. He had to fight the urge follow Thranduil’s gesture across his neck and probe at the newer, uglier scar that had joined the one Thranduil carved onto his throat in the alley all those months ago. This time, the scar belonged to him.

That night. His memories twisted in on themselves, tangling around Thranduil in a dark and impenetrable mass that threatened to bind him wholly. He bit the inside of his cheek, letting the tender spike of pain focus him. The issues between him and Thranduil would keep. They always did. But when the time came for Bard to face his own actions, he wasn’t sure he could explain them even to himself. He had wanted to make Thranduil feel the same fear, anger, and helplessness Bard had lived with for months on end. He’d wanted to prove that while Thranduil had all the power, he was tied to Bard as closely as Bard was tied to him. And he _had_ proven it. But that knowledge did not feel like a victory.

He could still feel Thranduil watching him, quietly vindictive. The silence between them seemed to produce its own sound, to groan under a massive weight. At long last, Bard eased off the accelerator.

“I want to get back to my family,” he said hollowly.

“We will,” Thranduil said. “But we need to arm ourselves.”

Bard slowly let his breath out. “Just tell me where to go.”

After a moment, Thranduil nodded. “The storage unit,” he said, leaning back into his seat. Bard could feel his eyes on him even as he turned the car towards their new destination, driving away from his children because Thranduil told him to. It made his stomach twist into a hard, bitter knot. Trusting him would never come easy.

Bard knew that in less urgent circumstances, Thranduil would not sit so placidly in the passenger seat, saying or doing nothing—he would reach over and trace Bard’s scar with his fingertips, would drive their previous night into Bard like he might harpoon a writhing fish. Thranduil was not kind, and he was only gentle when it suited his purposes. Bard ought to take the reprieve he was given, and be grateful for it—but he only tightened his hands on the wheel. His children were in danger. They would see what was waiting out in the dark, and their lives would be redrawn and defined by the presence and absence of fear—just like his had become. He had to save them from that. No matter what it took.

Sharply, suddenly, he wanted his wife. Not in the constant, dull way that had become the background noise of his life. Right now, he was mourning not for his wife, but for his best friend—the woman who he’d never wanted to live without, long before he had the sense to fall in love with her. This kind of wanting twisted like a stiletto in his gut. She always knew what to do even at the worst of times—although she had never seen anything like Bard at his worst now. Perhaps she would have nothing to say to him. Perhaps she wouldn’t recognize him at all.

The rest of the brief drive passed in silence, until they saw the flames.

It started as a smell, a sharpness to the air coming in through the vents that made Bard’s eyes sting. He sensed Thranduil stiffen. And then, through the trees ahead, a glow that was redder than streetlights wavered through the trees.

Bard was slowing down as Thranduil leaned forward. A low reverberation passed through the air of the car—it took a moment for Bard to realize that Thranduil was actually _growling_. But he hardly cared. His eyes were ahead.

“Good God,” Bard whispered.

Flames poured up towards the sky like something liquid spilling into the stars, gushing up in streams of orange and yellow. Even with the windows up Bard could hear the roar of it, like one big never-ending breath sucking down everything it could.

Bard stopped the car near the flashing lights of a police car already forming a perimeter—the red lights on their roofs were swallowed up by the glow of the conflagration.  

“Stay here,” Bard said, lunging out of the car before Thranduil could stop him. He jogged over to the policemen standing with their car between them and the blaze. Even this close Bard felt it baking the skin of his face, rolling over him in ash-scented waves. It seemed half the storage compound was ablaze. He raised his hand against the buffeting heat, struggling even to see the officers’ faces as they turned towards him. He could only make out their tension.

“Stay back sir, we’re establishing— _Bard_?” The officer had to shout over the roar of the flames. He recognized the voice immediately. After all, there were not many police officers in such a small town, and last time he had heard it its owner had been questioning him about the death outside of Hilda’s bar.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Officer Irene yelled.

“I saw the flames from the road,” Bard shouted back.

Irene squinted at his face against the burning stench of the smoke. “Why is it that whenever there’s some kind of trouble in this town, you’re never far behind it?”

“Call me unlucky,” Bard said, but something in the pit of his stomach squirmed. He, too, doubted the fire here was coincidence. Maybe Irene had been making a grim joke, but he hadn’t forgotten the doubt on her face the last time she’d interrogated him in his own living room. “What happened?” he asked.  The acrid tinge of smoke in the air was already making his eyes water. From the direction of the compound there was a sigh of something very heavy giving up its weight, followed by a crash. The roar of the flames intensified, fed by new fuel.

“We don’t know yet,” Irene said after a minute. Bard could feel her partner Braga’s eyes on him as keenly as the heat of the flames. “We’re waiting on the fire department, but they’ve got to make their way from a town over—shit, hang on—” Her radio had burst into a crackle of static and voices. She bent down to listen and speak into it, and her partner—Officer Braga—stepped forward to fix Bard with a sharp look.

“Are you renting a storage unit here?” he asked.

Bard met his eyes, facing the suspicion head on. “No,” he said. “I just wanted to stop and make sure no one was hurt.”

Braga snorted. He leaned in close, the firelight dancing over his fleshy face. “You know that we’ll be getting a list of all this place’s clients as soon as the last flame goes out,” he said.

“You won’t see my name.”

“And I’ll bet I should just take your word for that?”

“Braga,” Irene said sharply. She stood with the radio in her hand. In the light of the fire her face looked almost white. “I just got a call from Sharon at the station. There’s reports of more smoke and fires at multiple locations in the woods and town.”

Braga blinked. “ _More?_ How many?”

Irene shook her head. “They don’t know yet.”

“Jesus, that many? There’s no way this is an accident! What the hell is going on?”

Bard took a step back as the officers spoke, his heart beating hard in his chest. If there were more fires, then it likely meant that more of the caches of weapons and supplies had been discovered. He needed to tell Thranduil—to get back to his children—

Bard’s arm was seized in a grip strong enough to bruise. “Not so fast,” Braga said. “Do you really expect me to believe that you just _happened_ to show up here, on the other side of town from home and with no discernable reason to be here?”

“I don’t care what you believe, _officer_ ,” Bard said, wrenching his arm away. “You can’t prove anything.”

The words might have sounded innocent enough in Bard’s head, but as soon as he saw the glint spring up in Braga’s eyes he knew it had been the wrong thing to say. “I can’t prove anything, can I?” Braga said. “I’ve got you right here, at the scene of the crime. Coming back to gloat, were you?”

“Braga, it’s not the time,” Irene said from behind them. Bard could hear the tension in her voice, but he didn’t dare turn away from the man before him now.

“When else?” Braga said. “One man is already dead, Irene, and we never did get a straight answer as to what dragged him 20 feet up a tree and disemboweled him!” He narrowed his eyes in Bard’s face. “My partner was right. Any time someone gets hurt around here, there’s a direct line leading back to you. I’m tired of seeing it happen. It ends, tonight.”

Anger leapt up like an itch under Bard’s skin. There was no time for this—he had to get home. Braga’s face loomed in front of him, an ugly expression creeping over it. The man had distrusted him from the start. “What are you going to do?” Bard snapped. “Arrest me?”

Braga’s eyes flashed behind the wavering glow of the flames. “I think I might just.”

Bard didn’t back down. “With no just cause? That would be illegal.”

“Yeah? Well so’s arson.” Braga reached out. Bard’s tense muscles reacted on reflex—he batted the man’s hand away, and shoved him backwards.

Braga staggered, but quickly regained his footing. His expression was cold, but vindicated. He shifted his posture. His hand was now near his belt. “Wrong move, Bard. You just assaulted a police officer.”

“What are you talking—” Bard’s words were cut off as Braga seized his wrists.

Before Bard could resist Braga whirled him around and shoved him against the side of the car. The cold metal of the police car and the heat of the fire were nothing compared to the grip on Bard’s arm. “Get off me!” Bard yelled, to no effect. He wrenched away, but the man was stronger than he looked. Bard’s face was pressed to the metal, his arms pinned behind him—and then he heard the jingle of handcuffs.

Terror hit Bard like gasoline thrown on a fire. “You can’t do this!” he cried. “Please, I need to get home—my children—”

“What the hell are you doing?” Irene’s voice rang out like a shot, but Braga’s grip did not flinch.

“I’m securing a suspect,” Braga said grimly. “We’ll bring him in for questioning. See if all these fires are finally enough to make him sweat.”

At once he wrenched with all his strength, breaking Braga’s grip and turning to shove him away—but Braga was ready for him. A blow struck Bard across the mouth and sent him spinning back over the police car. For a moment he could only gasp, lights bursting behind his eyes. His hands were grabbed again, and this time cold metal closed over his wrists.

“God damnit, Braga!” Irene cried. “Let the man go. You know this ends in a suspension.”

“Not if I’m right. Besides, it’s for his own good. We can’t have civilians wandering around an uncontained fire, now can we?”

Bard wrenched at his hands, panic seizing his lungs. “Wait,” he said as Braga opened the car’s back door. “You don’t understand, I can’t be here, I have to go—”

“Got more evidence to cover up, do you?” Braga said, wrenching the door open and shoving Bard towards the backseat. Bard’s shoulders slammed into the top of the frame, and he braced himself there—but his arms were behind his back, and a moment later Braga had muscled him onto the back seat and slammed the door behind him.

“Let me go!” Bard yelled, slamming his feet into the door. There was no handle on the inside. The grate between the backseat and the driver’s side made him feel like a rat in a cage. His children needed him, there was no _time_ —if they took him back to the station, would he be there all night? Would there be anything left to go home to, by the time they let him go? The darkness seemed to constrict around him and squeeze the breath from his lungs. He slammed his feet into the door again and felt the useless, futile pain vibrate its way up his legs.

From the shadows outside the car he heard Braga’s voice raised in a challenge: “This is a crime scene, sir—stay back.”

“I believe you have something of mine.”

The voice Bard knew so well traveled down his spine like icy water. He recognized the cold flatness of it. The total inhumanity. A predator’s sound.  

A moment later Braga’s body slammed into the side of the car hard enough to send Bard tumbling to the other side.

The car’s alarm split the air with a wail that almost drowned out Irene’s curses—Bard struggled up just in time to see her go for her gun, the motion aborted halfway by a pale hand on her wrist. Thranduil stepped from the shadows as they had simply condensed to become him, pale hair and burning eyes kindled in the light of the fire. His expression was as pitiless as a shark’s. Irene’s face contorted in pain as Thranduil’s grip tightened. She went down to her knees. Thranduil’s other hand raised, and reached for her throat.

“No!” Bard screamed, slamming his shoulder against the door. “Don’t kill her! Thranduil! Wait!”

For a moment, the scene hung, frozen. And then Thranduil’s hand lowered to her holster and removed the gun, crushing the metal in his hand like a soda can. He tossed her aside as if she were little more than a rag-doll, her body rolling away across the asphalt. Bard couldn’t see if she was still moving before Thranduil stepped up to the door, gripped the handle, and wrenched it clear off its hinges.

For a moment Bard’s instincts prickled like the hair on his neck as Thranduil leaned into the car, all dark eyes glittering with the light of the flames, fury and anger and wildness scarcely contained beneath the surface as his long fingers reached into the car. He grabbed Bard by the front of his shirt and dragged him out of the car, practically slamming him against the outside of the vehicle just as Braga had done. For a moment Bard felt his breath on the back of his neck, felt fear twist its knives deep inside of him—until Thranduil reached down to grip the handcuffs holding his arms behind his back, and break the chain with a single wrench of his hands.

Bard turned around quickly. Thranduil was close in his space, eyes staring down at him with that same intensity he’d fixed on Irene moments before he planned to tear out her throat. He tilted his head, a wolfish movement. His fingers raised to Bard’s face, and Bard was too captivated to move—they traced the swelling on his lower lip where Braga had struck him. Perhaps he was bleeding. Of course he was. Bard couldn’t read the expression on Thranduil’s face, whether it was one of concern or of hunger. It was dangerous, and devastatingly tender. Thranduil’s touch spoke for him. _This is mine. I will claim it when I see fit._ But what Thranduil said was, “Time to go.”

He stepped away. It was then that Bard saw the crumpled form collapsed near the front door of the car. Braga’s chin had fallen forward onto his chest. There was a dent behind him. Bard didn’t know whether he was alive or dead, and there was no time to stop and find out. Heart pounding, he followed Thranduil back to the car.

For one brief instant Bard met Irene’s eyes. She lay on the asphalt where she’d fallen, a scrape on her cheek and her hair falling loose around her face. She stared at Bard with an expression of horrible incomprehension, open-mouthed, terrified. She had seen. She would come for him, with questions he could neither answer or ignore. And what could he do when she did?

“Get in your car and lock all the doors,” Bard said hoarsely. “Don’t open it for anyone you don’t know. If they come, drive away and don’t look back.”

There was nothing more to do. He turned around and got into his truck, and left the fear painted in the reds and oranges on her face behind.

This time, Thranduil drove—and he drove faster even than Bard had. Bard stared at him from the passenger seat with a growing sense of dread. They left the glow of the fire behind them, but the smoke had already wormed its way into the car, sinking into their clothes and hair. They carried the fire with them.

“I heard on the radio that this isn’t the only fire.”

Thranduil’s expression did not change. “Yes. I’d say it’s likely that Smaug has given all of our caches the same treatment. The stores in the woods. My apartment. Tauriel’s hideout.”

“ _How_? How could he have known _?”_

“I don’t know.” Thranduil’s hands tightened on the wheel. Bard thought the plastic might break.

“What does it mean?” Bard said quietly.

Thranduil did not take his eyes from the road. “It means,” he said at last, “that we need to get to your house as quickly as possible.”  

As if in response, Thranduil’s phone chimed. He had it out and on speaker before Bard could take a breath. “Tauriel? Tell me what’s happening.”

“They have the house surrounded. I’m not sure how many. They’re keeping their distance for now.” He almost didn’t recognize Tauriel’s voice. There was no edge of cruel amusement. Her words came fast and high. Bard wasn’t sure he had ever heard her afraid. “Thranduil, this is bad.”

“We’re on the way,” Thranduil said. “We can handle this together, Tauriel. I need you to focus.”

There was a long pause. “It’s worse than you know,” Tauriel said wretchedly. “Thranduil, I—I made a mistake. You should go, stay away from here, and get as far as you can—”

“That’s not going to happen,” Bard cut in harshly. “I’m not leaving my children. We’re coming.”

He heard Tauriel sigh. It was a wearier sound than he might have expected. “I figured as much.” Tauriel’s quiet defeat was almost more frightening than her fear had been. Bard might have expected her to gloat at least a little over the fact that she had his entire family hostage. But there was nothing of her former self.

“How are they?” Bard asked quickly. “Are they hurt?”  

“No. They’re all unharmed.”

“Are they scared?”

A pause. “Oh yes. I imagine they’re very frightened.”

Bard slammed his hand onto the dashboard. The pain moved through him like the vibrations of a tuning fork. He let it steady him. He bit back his immediate demands: to put one or all of his children on the phone. There was nothing that he could do for them now except perhaps frighten them more. He needed to _be_ there. “Listen to me,” he said. “I want you to try—at least _try—_ to comfort them. Tell them it’s going to be okay.”

“We don’t know that it is.”

“ _Lie,_ Tauriel. Make sure that Tilda is looked after. Don’t let Bain near the windows. Tell Sigrid to get a bag, and pack as many emergency supplies as possible. Only the stuff we might really need.” He could feel Thranduil’s eyes lock onto him, but he wouldn’t meet them.

“I will,” Tauriel said. There was a pause—voices babbled from the other end of the phone. “Hang on,” Tauriel said, a new note of tension in her voice. “They’re gathering at the tree line now. Not coming forward.” Bard’s hand tightened on the phone until he felt sure he was going to break it. “They’ve got something between them—some cans of something.” A long pause. “Oh, _shit_.”

“Tauriel? What’s happening?” Bard said urgently.

A long pause, with loud voices in the background. Then the line went dead.  

 “Shit!” Bard cried, tossing the phone down. His hands were shaking, making the loose links of the handcuffs jingle.

“Try to breathe,” Thranduil said. “We’re almost there.”

 “Damn it Thranduil! How can you just, just sit there and—and—” He made himself stop, made himself breathe. The handcuffs still latched tightly to his wrists with a bite of metal, but he couldn’t seem to loosen them. He felt as if the same cutting grip was tightening around his neck.

“We’ll get to the house,” Thranduil said quietly. “From there, we decide our next move. They’re safe as long as they’re inside.”

“They’d better be,” Bard said bitterly. He had nothing to threaten. But Thranduil drove faster all the same.

Nothing seemed different on the familiar roads that wound up towards the cluster of houses in the woods. No gaunt, hungry faces flitted around the tree trunks. Bard’s own face stared back at him from the darkness of the window, a pale mask flung over the forest speeding by behind it. Out there was nothing but darkness.

Until—there was something, a glow—

The fire?

“Thranduil, did we turn around?” Bard said. His voice sounded like a bad recording, distorted, unreal.

Thranduil said nothing.

They turned onto Bard’s cul-de-sac.

Every house was aflame.

Bard couldn’t speak. He couldn’t move. The car drove closer, as inevitable as a dream. He wanted to wake up. This couldn’t be happening. No people stood on the lawns outside, and he knew why. The fire would have flushed them out. And beyond the threshold, the mouths were waiting. Oh god, oh god, oh god—

“Stop the car!” Bard screamed. Thranduil was saying something, shouting it even, but Bard wasn’t listening. He wrenched at the handle, and Thranduil wasn’t fast enough to stop him—he was out and onto the pavement, pelting towards the house at full speed. It was then he saw the shapes, peeling away from the tree line and gliding down to meet him like pale, silent moths—but he would get there first. Where were they? _Inside_. He knew it immediately. They would stay there as long as possible before trying to fight their way out. Or maybe they would simply choose the flames. No, no, there was time. They were still alive. They had to be. They had to be.

A hand swiped at his back, grabbing a fistful of his shirt—he thought it was Thranduil until pain blossomed on his shoulder. With a roar Bard tore the ever-present stake from his coat pocket and blindly lunged. He didn’t know whether he hit the heart. The pressure released, and he kept running. More shapes were closing in on him, but the door was right there, smoke pouring from around its corners—the flames were licking up the sides of the house, seeking a way in. They’d been started from the outside, he could see. They’d left the path to the door open, though. They didn’t want to burn them—they wanted to eat them. He could hear cries, human voices coming from the other houses, but there was no time to stop. Mad eyes darted in at him from all directions, but he hit the door running and burst into his burning home.

Smoke, everywhere. A thick grey mat of it hanging like curtains in front of his face. He doubled over, gagging, and immediately the air was clearer—some distant part of his memory sparked. Stay low, beneath the smoke. He fell to the floor, scrambling down the passage on his hands and knees with his shirt pulled over his mouth. “Kids!” he screamed over the roar of the flames. The sound of breaking glass sent terror shooting through him, but there were no hands grabbing at his ankles—it was only the heat of the fire shattering the windows.

“Sigrid!” he yelled. “Tilda! Bain!” Already his throat was growing hoarse. He could scarcely see, the smoke was stinging his eyes so painfully— _could anything have stayed alive in here for long?_

He half-stumbled, half-crawled down the hallway, ducking his head into every room and shouting his family’s names. There was no answer but the roar of flames from outside, growing louder and more hungry by the second. For now the house was like a giant oven, heat pouring in from the windows to bake them all alive. Before long the flames themselves would creep in, nervously at first and then all at once, rushing in to see what they could devour. He saw the curtains he’d installed himself five years ago catch fire in the living room, for a moment looking like a dress of burning flame. It was all going up. Every last bit of it. The fire department might come, or they might be fighting the dozen other fires around town—but if they did, they’d be torn apart the second they stepped out of their truck.

A choked sob lodged itself in the bottom of his throat—if he let it out he might vomit. There was nothing to do but keep moving, try to cover his face, try to breathe evenly when every breath was like hooks scraped down the inside of his throat. _They’re dead. You were too late. Now you’ve truly lost everything._

Bard staggered to his feet, the smoke stinging his eyes so sharply he could hardly breathe. “ _Sigrid!”_ he howled. “Kids! Where are you?” The roar of the flames was the only reply.

“ _No_ ,” Bard moaned, as he felt his way blindly along the wall. Squinting through the wreaths of oily black smoke, he could see the foot of the stairs—and above them, an orange glow. If the smoke was this bad on the lower level, the upstairs would be a death trap. But he would go. Even if it was just a chance to die with his family’s bodies in his arms, he would go.

He crouched down, taking one last breath of the clearest air he could find. Heat buffeted his face from the stairwell. Wood seethed and hissed like water, already crumbling away. There was no time. He had to go. He had to—

“ _Da!”_

The voice was tiny, floating through his mind like an ember before extinguishing itself. But he heard it. It was real.

“Kids?” he shouted, throat raw from smoke and shouting. He couldn’t make his voice go loud enough. He was trapped in a nightmare, mute and helpless, but he wouldn’t stop trying. “Where are you? _Can you hear me_?”

“Da, in here!” And then, impossibly, a hand was grasping at his arm, pulling him forward—through the open doorway to the kitchen. Even over the roar of flames he could hear the hiss of water, the sink turned on, the refrigerator door thrown open—he looked up into Sigrid’s face.

No words came to him. There was no time for an embrace. His children were huddled underneath the table, a soaked blanket draped over it to keep the smoke out. They’d done what they could to protect themselves. Their faces were streaked with ash, eyes red and puffy—Bain had his arms wrapped around Tilda’s shoulders, smoothing her hair down as she cried.

Bard and Sigrid half-crawled towards them, huddling in close and pressing their heads together, sharing tears and the same pocket of clean air, the last they might ever taste. Ridiculously, he saw that Sigrid was wearing a backpack—the one Bard had told her to pack. He’d thought that his family would have to leave home, but just for a while, and then they could come back—and everything would be the way it was before. This time he couldn’t hold back the sob that wrenched up from his throat, though it was lost among the coughs. There was no getting out. All that waited outside was a bloodier death, eaten alive.

“I’m sorry,” was all Bard could say. “God, I’m so sorry—”, but Sigrid squeezed his shoulder and pressed the crown of her head to his, and there was nothing more than that. So this was all he could give them, the very last thing. At least they wouldn’t die alone. At least it wasn’t Thranduil that killed him. But maybe that would have been better. Maybe that would have meant something more than this. Bard didn’t know anything anymore.

The kitchen windows burst inwards with a shower of white-hot glass, and at once there was nothing between them and the flames. He wrapped an arm around his children and pulled them close, trying to offer what protection he could.

“This is all very touching, but would any of you care to breathe again?”

Bard’s head snapped up. Smoke swirled around the kitchen like it was whipped by a desert wind, ash scattering across the floor, eddying around a pair of dark boots—Bard’s eyes followed them upwards, up to the eyes that burned like embers amidst the darkness, red hair and black smoke whipping around as one.

A second crash sounded from the window, and suddenly Tauriel was not standing alone. A human figure lunged at her, back arched like a cat, the ribs on its naked back standing out like a ladder, snarling, swiping—it landed a blow across her face and at first Bard thought it had smeared something there, until he saw the cuts spout out more blood. It couldn’t be here, inside, when no one had asked it in—yet he could only watch as Tauriel met its second barrage with a brutal upswing, the stake in her hand finding its mark. She brushed the thing aside before it had finished crumbling.

“They’re coming through!” she shouted. “They don’t need an invitation if there’s no house left. We have to go!”

“We can’t!” he cried hoarsely over the blaze. “They’re waiting for us!”

“Just trust me!” Tauriel’s eyes were desperate. Bard didn’t think he had ever seen her afraid. She stepped forward and extended her hand. There was blood and ash smeared across the palm. There was no time to hesitate, no time for questions. Bard seized it as if it were the last lamp in an eternal darkness.

When she tugged him on, he went, with his children gathered close around him. She pulled them out into the hallway, at the foot of the stairs again—and then they stopped. From upstairs the sound of the flames was like cackling laughter. When Bard glanced up through the smoke he swore he could see cracks of dancing yellow shining through the floorboards like molten metal. The house groaned again, entering its death throes. The crackling from the stairs behind him took on a different tone, splintering and shifting and pouring heat down the backs of their necks. Tauriel’s grip on his hand became bone-crunching, but she didn’t lead them anywhere.

“What are you doing?” Bard shouted. “We can’t stay here—”

The sound of breaking wood sounded from another room. Through the thick smoke, dark figures began filing out of the rooms at the other end of the hall. They were coming in. They wanted their meat raw. Tilda screamed, a cry so hoarse it was hardly there, and Bard pressed her face to his chest. He met Bain’s eyes, and Sigrid’s. Tears had made tracks in both of their faces. From above, the second floor groaned again, the upper set of teeth that would come down to crush them.

Through the kitchen, Bard could see the back door—beyond it was air, and cool grass, and night sky. He might get a good taste of at least two before he was torn apart. And even now, figures were darkening that doorway too—an arm reached through the open window, and turned the knob from the inside. They were here at last. The hellish red of the flames was brightening by the second, going yellow, and then as bright and white as heaven, and the roar got closer and closer—

The figure in the kitchen whirled around, and screamed—

The wall exploded.

Bard was aware of Tauriel yanking him and his kids behind her, shielding them from the splinters of wood that came flying out in all directions—the white light burned his eyes almost as bad as the smoke, and when he turned around two empty eyes stared at him from the ruins of his house. He blinked. They became headlights.

“ _Move!_ ” Tauriel screamed, shoving him and his children towards the lights. Bard didn’t think. He dragged his children forward, pushing them through the rear door. They clambered inside, coughing and choking and scrambling to get into the back-seat—Bard followed them, keeping his hands on their shoulders and heads as if he were afraid they were going to dissolve. Tilda, Bain, Sigrid, all accounted for in the back—and Thranduil, sitting at the wheel, with blood in his hair and smeared over his chin. Tauriel lunged into the seat beside him, and threw the door closed. Through the windshield, the dark figures were pouring into the kitchen, seconds away, _milliseconds_ —

Thranduil put the truck in reverse, and floored it. The engine screamed. The truck scraped out from under the house’s weight. The instant that the truck slipped free from the gaping hole in the wall, there was nothing left for the house to lean on. The entire second story came crashing down into the kitchen with a sound like two massive hands clapping shut, burying the dark figures alive in flames.

Something hit the back of the car with a sickening _thud,_ and the tires leapt as they ran over it. Thranduil did not stop until they had almost reached the tree-line—at first Bard thought it was branches scraping at the windows, until he heard his children screaming, and saw the fangs. The car surged forward again, tires almost slipping in the grass, almost dooming them—but then they were free, peeling out over the yard, human shapes with dark, lolling mouths springing up and flying over the hood of the car so quickly they existed only as polaroid shots.

Thranduil did not stop when he reached the driveway. He did not stop when he reached the road. He kept driving, faster and faster, as the light of Bard’s burning house, of _all_ the burning houses, grew smaller and smaller behind them. The houses reduced to torches, and then the tiny flames of candles standing side-by-side in the dark—soon there was nothing but a faint reddish glow, far away. And then there was nothing at all.

 


	22. Part Two: Epilogue

  _10,000 years ago._

 

For the first time in five full-moon-times, the arctic sun creeps back into the world.

The sky has been lightening for days now, a yellow heat in the east that blushes like blood. But it is only today, when the first fiery edge of the sun breaching the horizon like the back of a whale, that the hunters gathered in their small camp on the ice begin the proper rituals to greet the end of darkness.  They welcome the sun in high tongues. They sing the chants to catch it and drag it back again. They give thanks that winter has passed, and that the creature on the ice at last will hunt them no more.

On the last count, they are wrong.

The creature hears them, of course. It has watched for some time.; it understands their speech. It has eaten some of them. Not slowly. It knows well how to keep prey alive, if necessary. The others it suffers to live, out of boredom. It has spent the long eons of existence chasing the absence of light, and here it has found paradise: a flat expanse painted ghostly by the remote light of the stars, waves of an aurora prickling on its skin like a distant wind. But it is a lonely paradise, and a cold one. The creature craves heat. It craves life between its jaws.

It can remember a time when it was totally alone, when the beasts had not yet reared up to walk as it walks, to form a crude tongue for language it has silently spoken for eras. This place is of a like kind. But with this new prey comes a new source of amusement, for they suffer so exquisitely when they bleed.

So it lets them survive the winter. But now, the sun is returning. And the creature has grown hungry with waiting.

The first day lasts only the span of a thousand heartbeats. The sun is dragged beneath the earth as if it never emerged.

There is no time of plenty here. Only a time to prepare for the next wave of darkness, already gathering on the opposite horizon. But with the sun should come the melt, the return of the game. A brief reprieve.

Not this time.

The cold of winter spills into early spring. Weeks pass. The ice groans and cracks in tortured spasms, but it does not break. The game stays further south this season. Even the sun seems to keep its distance, lending only watery light when it passes over the edge of the world.

All of these things can be endured, but for the last.

It comes for the first of them just after the third sunset. The nights are growing shorter, and so it happens quickly. One moment the man is there, and the next he is gone—no one can remember seeing him leave, or hearing him scream. The next to die is different. The creature makes sure the hunter’s companions know exactly what happened to him, in the sounds they hear for hours after the man is taken, and in the blood and viscera they discover in a perfect ring around their camp the next day. There is nothing left to bury.

After that, it waits a while. The waiting is important. With the empty days comes fear, a stench so thick that it blows off of the hunters’ camp stronger than the fumes of their smoke.

There is not much game to be found. The hunters have little to eat. They do not know true hunger, not the way _it_ does—but their pathetic aping of hunger is amusing. And so the creature kills and destroys every scrap of edible food within a two-day’s walk of the camp.

Their lesser hunger grows keener. Their bodies are gnawed away by it. Now at last, they are becoming more familiar.  

The hunters eat what birds they can kill. The creature eats a hunter that strays too far to relieve himself. They boil what leather they have, and swallow what they can. They have already lasted longer than it thought they were capable of. The next time it kills another, it leaves the body largely intact. It watches. It wants to know what they will do. Curiosity.

What they do is begin to eat each other.

First they bury the body in a shallow grave of snow, and pile rocks over it. A week passes. During the spring night, one of the hunters digs the body up and cuts chunks off of it with his knife. He tells the others that he discovered a carcass on the ice, and removed what edible flesh he could. The others do not question him. The smell of cooking meat is too much for them to resist. They eat all of it quickly enough.

There are only so many ‘carcasses’ to be found on the ice before the grave runs empty and the hunger returns. They move camp, heading south, a last bid for familiar climates and the chance of more game. Silently, the hunters pray that the creature will strike again. They will eat what it leaves behind.

It keeps its distance. Again, it is waiting.

The first to turn on his own kind smothers the man beside him as he sleeps. He tells the others he died of hunger. They eat him. There is not much flesh on his body to salvage, so they eat the skin, the bones, even the brains. The sound of chewing cartilage smacks over the emptiness on the ice. Then there is nothing. Hunger, again. Only this time, they still have food.

The same man kills again. Less neatly this time. He claims the other was stealing the last of their food. Now there are six of them left. The man, the killer, understands. There are too many mouths to feed that could be doing the feeding. He already sees his friends as food. The man kills two more, and offers no reason. He just eats, raw, crouching over the bodies where they fell. The other two only watch. It doesn’t last longer after that.

Now begins the final night. It will last only for a thousand heartbeats. But they, too, will be the last.

In the first moments of darkness, the other two turn their knives on the killer before he can kill them. They almost succeed in killing him. But the creature kills them first, tearing one in half with a sound like ripping cloth, and then crushing the other’s head in its mouth slowly enough to savor the taste and the mad thrashing of limbs.

At last, everything is still.

Afterwards, there is only the man that would kill his own kind for food. He sits where he fell, and does not try to run. Nothing more than a small collection of fluttering blood and warmth, reeking of fear and flesh. Pathetic. Just like the rest of his kind. But there is something different about this one—the hunger is there, already woken. The killing seed.

The creature regards the scraps of its meal, smears of red on the ice so dark they appear almost black. It decides to make the hunter eat them, too.  

It watches for hours as the hunter consumes all that he can, crunching chunks of half-frozen flesh, licking the red snow clean. By the time he finishes he is sobbing, writhing in agony, and the sun pushes against the dark edge of the horizon, struggling to be born. The creature laughs. It learned that from the humans. It stares down at the quivering man-thing before it, bloody-faced, no longer human. There is potential here. A weapon to be whittled away like the bone knives the hunters carry, to a point of unbearable sharpness. It will strip away all that is weak and useless, and replace it with itself.

“You like the taste of your own kind,” the creature says in tones little different from the rumble of the ice. The thing does not look up, huddled and worthless on the ice, stained with the grease and blood of his friends. He could be more. The creature could _make_ him more.

"What is your name?" 

The man's voice is scarcely more than a whisper. His throat is hoarse with blood. Not his own. "...Azog." 

“Azog," the creature repeats, and in that syllable there is _power_. "You will be the first,” it decides. And it lowers its clawed hands onto the hunter’s shoulders, and the wide, awful mouth comes down.

By the time the sun dawns for the last time before next winter, there is only blood on the snow—and a hole in the ice, leading into a deep blue darkness where light has never reached, echoing with sounds that could no longer be mistaken for laughter. 


	23. Chapter 23

Thranduil pulled over twenty minutes down the road. As soon as the truck came to a stop, the doors flung open and sent its occupants scattering like a flock of sparrows.

Bain was first, throwing the car door open and shooting out towards the woods with Sigrid was hard on his feet, chasing him down, shouting at him to wait—they didn’t make it far before she had tangled a hand in his jacket, and dragged both of them to the ground. Thranduil could hear Sigrid trying to calm him, but all she got in return were cries muffled in the collar of his shirt.

Tilda had stumbled out after them. She tottered off towards the woods as if trying to wander back home, her expression blank and streaked with tears, before Tauriel stopped her with a grip on her wrist. Tilda tugged against it, still crying, and Tauriel watched her helpless struggles with an expression of bewilderment, unsure what to do, unsure whether to do anything.

All of this happened in the span of a moment, as Thranduil stepped out of the car. The moment after that, Bard had him by the throat.

For a human, he was exceptionally strong. Thranduil felt his back slam into the nearest tree with enough force to crush his lungs, and send the breath he had taken to offer an explanation whooshing past his lips. Then Bard’s fingers closed around his throat all the more tightly, and that was Thranduil’s last thought of speaking.

“What have you done?” Bard said. His voice was little more than an animal growl, filled with hitches and catches where emotion had its way with it. His face was inches from Thranduil’s. The split in his lip where the officer had struck him stood out like a red flag against the paleness of his bared teeth. If Thranduil had been human, Bard’s grip on his throat might have snapped his neck. He doubted Bard even knew what he was doing. There was nothing recognizable in his eyes but blind terror, reeling disbelief. His grip tightened. Thranduil let it. He wouldn’t push the man away, nor look away from his eyes.

“This is your fault,” Bard cried, shaking him so hard his head slammed into the tree. It hurt. Thranduil let it. “If you hadn’t—if you had never—” Thranduil gritted his teeth, wishing the pressure on his throat would let up so he might say… _what?_ That it wasn’t true? That Smaug had been the one to burn his house to the ground, and slaughter the people Bard had lived beside for years? That Smaug had taken his life away? Thranduil had been doing that, piece by piece, for months. It was a different sort of fire, but it burned just as hungrily, and in time would have left little more in its wake.

Bard was breathing hard, hanging onto Thranduil’s throat like a jumper might cling to a ledge, moments before the final plunge. “It’s all gone,” he groaned. He was beginning to shake, as if an earthquake was rising up from his core, his own personal cataclysm. “All of it—oh god—”

At once, his grip on Thranduil’s neck was gone, hands yanked away as if Thranduil had burned him.  Bard turned around, covering his face with his hands, dragging that awful grief into a place where Thranduil could not watch it. His body shook with silent cries, swallowed down to the pit of his stomach where they hit with every spasm.

Thranduil watched to reach out to him, even as he knew that Bard despised his touch—that perhaps he always had, and always would. There was nothing else to do. There was no one else to do it.

Over the man’s shoulder Thranduil caught Tauriel’s eye. Tilda was tugging against her with the full weight of her body, still crying helplessly, pulling towards the woods as if a door to a different outcome was waiting just beyond the trees.

“Get off of her!” Sigrid cried, as she ran up to gather Tilda in her arms and yank her from Tauriel’s grip.

Tauriel stared at her with the same expression of bewilderment. “I was just trying to help,” she said.

“Haven’t you done enough?” Sigrid said bitterly as she held her sister to her. Bain sat on the ground where he had fallen, silent, eyes red. Sigrid and Tilda huddled around him. Their eyes did not turn towards Thranduil, averted from where their father shuddered and choked man on the cusp of drowning. Behind them, Tauriel lingered, her hair outlined in red against the car’s headlights, her face in shadow. Bard and his family were between them, hanging in the balance. Or perhaps they were already falling, all of them, together.

A slow prickle crept through Thranduil’s chest. It wasn’t just him and Bard anymore. They were all bound together by survival. They would have to care for the children, to keep them safe. And Thranduil had no idea how to do that.

“Bard,” Thranduil murmured, trying to cut through the shock and panic wracking the man’s frame. He didn’t dare try and touch him yet. “We can’t stay here. We have to keep moving.”

For a long moment he wondered if Bard had even heard him—if he was capable of understanding. But then Bard nodded, wordless, the last sobs still forcing their way up his throat. He kept his face covered until he was still, and wiped the tears away with the practice of a man well accustomed to burying his pain. He did not look back at Thranduil as he stepped towards his children, fell to his knees before them, took them all into his arms. For a long while they remained very still. It seemed that as they clung to each other, something settled around them like a shroud. The tears slowed. They drew strength from each other.

This was what their family was, Thranduil realized. More now than he had ever seen them. They had brought each other through a cataclysm before. Together, they were strong. A pang of unease rose in Thranduil’s chest. Stronger even, perhaps, than him.

When Bard looked up again, his eyes were red-rimmed, but dry.

“I think I and my children deserve an explanation,” he said in a dull, hoarse voice, “as to why we’re here right now.”

Slowly, Thranduil turned to Tauriel. He could feel her confusion, her fear—her guilt. Thranduil remembered her words on the phone, _Smaug found us, It’s my fault._ He could not see her thoughts, but the picture was becoming clearer. Tauriel’s absence the night before. The bag of supplies she had taken. The secret she had almost revealed to him.

“I couldn’t agree more.” Thranduil said.

Tauriel stood against the backdrop of the headlights, her eyes the only point of light in her face. She met Thranduil’s gaze as if making a challenge, but there was no defiance left in her. Her shoulders were slumped. Her hands hung loose by her sides. She was more defeated than Thranduil had ever seen her, and they had both tasted defeat more times than he cared to count. 

Slowly, at last, her eyes closed.

“I made a mistake.” Her voice was very quiet. “I thought that I could do what you could not.”

Thranduil felt the weight of full realization settled onto his shoulders. “You went after Smaug,” he said, and Tauriel nodded. When her eyes opened again he could not read their expression.

“Legolas found me,” she began. Her words were coming quicker now, spilling out of her mouth in spurts. “He told me the Durins were planning a second assault. I tracked them down to try and stop them, but then—well. I thought maybe there was a chance that together we could succeed.”

“Fool,” Thranduil said tiredly. He could muster no anger.

“Who are the Durins?” Bard asked. His voice was soft, as if his children were sleeping rather than huddling in shock. Tilda looked as if she was not hearing anything that was said—Bain’s face was twisted in confusion and pain, but his father’s hand gripping his shoulder quelled the questions on his tongue. Sigrid watched, silent, exhausted, listening to every word.

“More of our kind,” Thranduil replied. “A coven. A _rival_ coven, in fact. My history with them goes back centuries, and none of it is pleasant.” He turned back to Tauriel. “They had failed to kill Smaug once before, just as I had. That’s why you didn’t tell me what you were doing. You _knew_ it was wrong.”

“I knew you would stop me,” she retorted, her eyes flashing. “You would rather hide and flee than take a chance at a more permanent peace.”

“There is no peace, Tauriel,” Thranduil said. “I discovered that long ago, and it was the most painful lesson I’ve ever had to learn. You can no more kill Smaug than you can banish rain, or cease our need to drink.”

“It was different this time!” Tauriel cried. “The Durins knew Smaug’s location—and they knew he was hunting you. We had an opportunity to strike when Smaug had his focus elsewhere, when he would not see us coming.”

After a moment, Thranduil chuckled coldly. “I was your bait.”

Tauriel did not deny it. “We were going to stop him before he had a to strike at you. The Durins had discovered that Smaug had a weakness.”

Thranduil looked at her sharply. “Smaug has no weaknesses.” And yet, this time, his words were tinged with a question.

Tauriel hesitated. “It was a human,” she said at last. “By the name of Bilbo Baggins. He was a doctor, before Thorin found him. He had some kind of poison—a serum, as he called it—that would have weakened Smaug enough for us to kill him. They were going to use the human to get close enough. They knew Smaug would never let one of his own kind get close enough to kill him, but a human…” Tauriel shrugged. “We already knew that he was hungry. But we never got to find out whether it would have worked.”

To his surprise, Thranduil saw she was shaking. She shook her head, dragged a hand through her hair as if to pull the bad memories away. “It happened right after we began to move in,” she said. “Smaug, he… he sensed us coming. I don’t know how he did it, but he knew exactly where each and every one of us were. Everyone except the human, and there was nothing he could do to help. I _felt_ Smaug… inside of my mind. Like the connection between you and me, but different. So much worse.”

“Smaug is the sire of all vampires,” Thranduil said tiredly. “We are all connected to him, whether we wish it or not.”

“He looked right into me,” Tauriel said bitterly. “Into all of us. He must have seen everything we were planning—the serum, the ambush, where the caches were, and where your humans were likely to be. I can’t think of any other way he would have known. I—I failed.” There were no tears—their kind could not muster them. Thranduil offered no consolations.

Tauriel shook her head. When she looked up again, the predator was back in control. There was no more emotion tugging at her frayed edges. Only sharp purpose. “We were separated in the battle,” she continued. “I only know Legolas is alive because I never felt our connection break. As for the others…” She spread her hands. “They could live, die, or be in Smaug’s hands for all I know. And after that, he came straight for you.”

“And the jaws of his trap snapped shut,” Thranduil said bitterly. He turned on his heel, stalked a few paces away before turning back to her. Now the anger was arriving, a darkness gathering at the corners of his eyes. It needed room to unfurl. “You have betrayed me,” he said. “You have gone behind my back and led our enemies right to our door. If you had only _trusted_ me, Tauriel—”

“ _Trusted you_?” Tauriel’s voice rang with disbelief. “How could I trust you, when every day you sacrificed our safety for _that_?” Her finger pointed in accusation at the family huddled in the grass by the road. Bard did not look at her. His eyes were on Thranduil, and they were burning.

“Admit it, Thranduil,” Tauriel spat. “You’ve gone as soft as an overripe peach. You actually have _feelings_ for them.”

“Do not presume to know what I feel!” Thranduil hissed.

Tauriel did not so much as flinch at the white-hot fury in his tone. “You can’t hide it from me,” she said. “I can feel your mind. Those humans aren’t prey to you anymore. You see them as practically one of us.”

“That isn’t true.” Thranduil could feel the weight of Bard’s eyes on him. What more was there to say? It would be as much a lie to deny Tauriel’s accusation as it would be to confirm it. If Tauriel could read his feelings, she was already doing better than him.  Thranduil turned around, staring at the moonlight through the trees. He’d come to know this land like an extension of himself. It had almost begun to feel like home.  

“It does not matter which of us is at fault,” Thranduil said dully. “The outcome is the same.”

“The outcome is that we escaped,” Tauriel argued. “We can run now, go so far that even Smaug can’t track us down. We can start over.” Whether that ‘we’ included Bard and his family, Tauriel did not elaborate.

Thranduil tilted his head back. The moon touched his skin, leaving a faint prickle in its wake. A memory of the sun, a distant reflection. “You truly don’t understand, do you?” he said softly. “We live now only because Smaug has allowed it.” Thranduil turned around, meeting Bard’s gaze first. The man was silent, watching the pair of them, his own thoughts moving deep beneath the surface. Thranduil turned to Tauriel with a thin smile.

“Even Smaug could not have pulled that information from your mind, Tauriel. Not so quickly, and in such detail. The only way he could have known our weaknesses so totally, is that he has known for some time now where we were. He has been watching, biding his time. He could have annihilated us if he wished to. We escaped because he allowed it. And now, he wants to give us the time to become truly afraid But make no mistake—he will come for us, no matter where we go.”

“Then we never stop,” Tauriel said. “We rarely stay any one place long as it is. We keep moving, and we don’t look back.”

“For how long?” Thranduil smiled without humor. “We have an eternity, after all. That’s a long time to run.”

“You may have that long, but I and my family don’t.” Bard’s voice cut through the air between them. His gaze moved from Thranduil, to Tauriel, and back again. “Smaug didn’t just come after either of you alone. He burned my house down. He sent those _things_ after my children. We’re a part of this now too, and we can’t spend our whole lives running.”

Thranduil shot Tauriel a sharp look before she could say the words on her tongue—that they could stay behind, and get eaten. She clamped her jaw shut and glared, but remained mercifully silent. Thranduil met Bard’s eyes once more. “You will have to come with us,” he said.

Thranduil could scarcely remember Bard looking so haggard before this moment. “Where will we go?” he asked. “We can’t decide the course of our lives in a five-minute stop on the side of the road.”

“That might be exactly what we are about to do,” Thranduil said. “It’s all a matter of time now. Of trying to fight for as much of it as possible. Where we go, and what we do—all these things will determine how long we have.” The last two words of his sentence— _to live—_ were a silent weight in the night around them. Thranduil looked at the children again. It occurred to him that they must be very afraid, and that there was nothing to be done about it.

At last, slowly, Tauriel spoke. “There may be a place we can go.”

Thranduil looked up at her warily. “What place?”

“A safe-house. One that the Durins mentioned. They had spent some time there before. It was where we were supposed to meet, if we were to become scattered in the attack.”

“No house will last long under an assault by Smaug.”

Tauriel did not contradict him. “But where else can we go?”

To that, Thranduil had no answer. After a long pause, he nodded shortly.

And that was that. He felt the weight of that decision shift around him, like a current tugging them in a new direction. Everything flowed towards the same end, now. Towards Smaug.

Bard had begun moving his children back into the car when Thranduil returned to him. He spoke to them in dull, quiet tones, words of comfort that Thranduil found meaningless. They all looked smaller than Thranduil remembered, compressed by grief and pain.

“Bard?” he called out softly before the man followed his children into the car. Slowly, Bard turned to face him. As soon as his children were out of sight, the mask fell away—he was a dead man walking. There was no anger when he looked at Thranduil now, chewed away by exhaustion as it was. It would be back. It always was, with them. Yet in this moment, Thranduil reached after something different.

He leaned in to take Bard’s wrist in his hand, ignoring the way the man tensed. The metal of the handcuffs was still clamped around them, forgotten until now. Thranduil wrenched them open with a short movement, taking both of them from Bard’s wrists and then tossing them into the ditch. The cut on the man’s lip was a final souvenir, one that Thranduil could cast away.

“I never meant for this to happen,” Thranduil said softly. “I just want you to know that.”

Bard stood in the open doorway of the car for a long time. “What _did_ you mean to happen?” he said at last. His tone was not accusing. Neither did it require an answer. Thranduil could not have given one. Perhaps this was the only outcome, from the very beginning.

Thranduil climbed into the driver’s seat of the truck, Tauriel beside him, the humans in the back. He pulled away from the side of the road, the patch of woods looking exactly as it had when they had stopped there, yet feeling as if a crater had been carved out of it. All that pain an grief left a scar on the land, and they carried it away with them.  

Thranduil turned down the road away from town, and drove.

 

* * *

 

After hours of driving, the children had finally fallen asleep. Until then there had only been patches of fraught silence, followed by the muffled sounds of grief. But now everything was still, although it was as fragile as the crust of lake-ice on the first morning of winter.

Thranduil could feel their heartbeats like a flutter of air on the back of his neck, slow, stable, all but one. Thranduil glanced at them in the rear-view mirror at times, saw their heads lolling and nodding in sleep. Bard sat between them, his arms encircling them tight—Sigrid lay with her head on one shoulder, and Bain on the other, with Tilda lying across all their laps. Sometimes one would stir, give a soft murmur near the surface of some unpleasant dream—but then Bard would stroke their hair, or squeeze their shoulders, and without waking they would sink down into sleep again. Out of all of them, Bard had not fallen asleep even once. They had been driving for most of the night, with no sign of stopping.

At his side, Tauriel was silent. He could feel her anger even now—he knew that it came easier to her than guilt, shame, remorse. She would not ask for forgiveness, and he would not offer it to her. Neither of them said anything at all. The silence of the car couldn’t be punctured.

The longer he sat still, the more Thranduil became aware of the various pains that laced his body. He hadn’t made it from their escape unscathed—his body ached where claws had slashed at him during the battle outside the burning house. He’d held the fledglings at bay as best he could, giving Bard the time he needed to get into his home. But sharp nails and even sharper teeth had had their way with him, and beneath his coat he felt the dark, thick ichor that filled his veins welling up even now. On the edge of his consciousness, like a dull blade gently sawing over his skin, he could feel the sunrise drawing closer. They would have to stop soon, no matter how close the hunters were.

Bard stirred from a half-sleep as the truck slowed down, the red light of the cheap motel sign sliding over his face. He stared blearily at the motel sign before meeting Thranduil’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. “We’re stopping?” His voice was quiet enough not to wake the children yet.

Thranduil nodded. “Sunrise is in less than an hour.”

Bard glanced at the sleeping forms huddled around him. Even in sleep, their faces looked drawn and creased with the memory of pain. “Are we far enough away to be safe?” he asked softly.

Automatically Thranduil’s eyes darted to the darkness behind Bard’s shoulder, waiting beyond the rear window outside. They had left a dark road behind them, and darker roads lay ahead. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “But we don’t have much choice.”

Bard nodded. As Thranduil pulled into the parking space, he set about waking the children.

While Tauriel and Bard remained by the car, Thranduil strode towards the front office. The man behind the desk was small, sallow, and greasy—it didn’t take long to negotiate a price to keep the rooms for a day, rather than a night, and to ensure they would not be disturbed. He returned with two keys on plastic tags to Bard and his children standing dull-eyed by the car. There was no sign of Tauriel, but Thranduil could sense her nearby. Her hunger rippled over him like wind stirring stalks of wheat, fingers dragging through a thick pelt of fir. He felt a similar sensation awakening in him, his wounds pulsing in time with the waves of it like an echo of a heartbeat. He clamped his teeth shut and tried to ignore it. This wasn’t the time.

“Our rooms are side-by-side,” Thranduil said, handing Bard a key. “Tauriel and I will share.”

Bard accepted it with a faint frown. “Is that safe? I would have thought you would keep us all together.”

“I thought you and your family could use some privacy.” Bard’s hand squeezed Tilda’s shoulder, a seemingly unconscious gesture. The man’s throat bobbed in a dry swallow as he nodded. Thranduil quickly looked away.

“I take it you don’t need an invitation,” Bard said.

Thranduil shook his head. “A motel is like a waystation. As no one lives here permanently, we can come and go as we please.”

Bard nodded. “Alright. Then we’ll get settled.” He hesitated. For a moment, Thranduil wondered if he was going to offer an invitation to visit them all the same. But then Bard closed his eyes as if to clear his head, and guided his children towards their room without another word. Thranduil watched his retreating back. The man’s emotions were not as clear to him as Tauriel’s might have been, but in this moment he felt practically nothing at all. Perhaps it was less an issue with the bond—perhaps Bard was simply numb.

As if the man’s exhaustion had crept over their bond, Thranduil felt his own aches kindled like embers in his bones. He gripped his key tighter as he walked. His own room faced outside just as Bard’s did, lit by a flickering fluorescent light spotted with dead insects. Thranduil turned the key and stepped inside. The darkness was musty and warm, thick with the passage of numerous strange bodies through the years. Thranduil wrinkled his nose, and closed the door behind him. He set to sun-proofing the room, pinning down the curtains and lining the cracks with towels, preparing a chair to be wedged under the door handle once Tauriel returned. He sank down onto one of the beds, knowing that as soon as the sun breached the horizon he would not be able to stave off unconsciousness for long.

Behind him, through the thinness of the wall, he could hear Bard and his family moving around in their own room. Thranduil stilled, and listened. He heard their voices in quiet murmurs, too tired now for tears. Perhaps they were sharing some food from Sigrid’s singed backpack, discussing what they would do next. The children would have more questions than Bard could likely answer in a night, or a year. It was a moment so intimate even Thranduil felt a trespasser. He heard the shape of Bard’s words, and the soothing, wordless murmurs in between.

Part of Thranduil wished that he could be there, to do what he could. In many ways, Bard was right—this was Thranduil’s fault. Between him, Tauriel, and Smaug, the blame belonged to them all.  

Thranduil shifted positions, trying to tune out the sounds of Bard’s life moving on without him—his wounds twinged in protest. They would not heal on their own, not until he had fed. Asking such a thing of Bard tonight was unthinkable. But of course, Bard was not the only person staying at the motel tonight. Thranduil could sense the flicker of life from other rooms, strangers on their way from one place to another, stopping at a motel in the middle of nowhere, alone, unprotected.

Ridiculously, guilt flared. Thranduil could scarcely believe himself. Why shouldn’t he seek his satiation elsewhere? He had agreed that in exchange for Bard’s cooperation he would take no other lives, but the situation had irrevocably changed. In such dire straits as these, were the terms of his agreement with Bard already void? If he drank from another, he knew that Bard would feel it. He couldn’t keep it from the man any more than he could keep it from Tauriel. Yet the hunger that gnawed at the edge of every nerve would not slake with time. He would grow more volatile, and with so many warm heartbeats trapped in the same car, he was not sure if he could control it.

Idly, and knowing it would only cause him more discomfort, Thranduil extended his consciousness to Tauriel. He couldn’t sift through her mind as Smaug had, but there were feelings, impressions that he could glimpse and form a picture. He knew she must be going from door to door of the motel, knocking with a pre-set expression of surprise for the stranger who would answer. She would smile, and apologize, and explain she had the wrong door—and depending on who answered the door, she would flirt or chat or worm her way into the stranger’s confidences, and they would close the door behind her as she stepped inside. Or perhaps she would waste no time, and simply lunge as soon as the door began to open. No need for an invitation here. She’d feed and hide the body in the scant minutes before sunrise, and return to their room sated, ready for tomorrow.

The voices from the other side of the wall had gone silent. Perhaps the children had fallen back asleep. Thranduil listened to the silence like a breath behind held by his ear, waiting for a word, a sound. Bard would not be asleep. He would be sitting up, watching his children, and perhaps sharpening a stake.

Thranduil ran his tongue over the edges of his teeth, and for just a moment, let himself think about the night in the garage. The taste of wine in Bard’s blood. The feeling of the man’s open mouth under his. The way Bard had arced and groaned and come undone. Thranduil had thought it was the beginning of a new chapter between them. He’d been right. The motel wall between them was as thin as paper, but Thranduil could not cross it.

It was the same old steps of the dance. One step closer, two steps back—and then wait for the world to break apart around them.  

Thranduil closed his eyes. He forced himself to detach, from Tauriel, from Bard, from everything. There was no time for distractions. They were down to the bone now, and one wrong move could be their last. He needed to be as sharp and focused as the point of a knife—and even then, they’d be lucky to survive for another week. It was all about winning time, now. Yet it slipped through his fingers faster and faster, ash crumbling away the harder he tried to clutch it.

 

* * *

 

Thranduil awoke when the sunlight was still a faint blush against the edges of the curtains. Looking at it for too long hurt his eyes, so he turned over and closed them. In the other bed, Tauriel lay as still as the grave, but he knew her skin would be warm with fresh blood. There were no sounds from the other room. Not even the faint stirring of breathing.

A cold edge of apprehension drew over the back of Thranduil’s mind. Would Bard have tried to leave? Caught a ride with some sympathetic traveler checking out in the morning, while Thranduil was penned in by the daylight? The man had to know such a thing was more than foolish—it was suicide. He needed Thranduil to watch his back, to protect him, to anticipate Smaug’s moves before they came. _Surely_ he knew that.

And if he had left all the same? He could be hundreds of miles away by now, with no way of following where he had gone.

Thranduil was up and pacing before he knew what he was doing. His movements didn’t penetrate the sun-haze Tauriel lay under—she would not stir until true night had fallen. Thranduil did not have the benefit of her younger years to keep him slow. His mind raced, spidering out from their location into every likely destination Bard might have chosen—an airport? Had Sigrid’s pack contained the family’s passports? Of course it had. But oceans would not stop Smaug when he had the hunt before him. It was personal now. And no matter how far Bard ran, the shadows would always be latched onto his heels.

Thranduil was just about ready to burst out, failing daylight or no, when he heard it: the sound of four pairs of footsteps walking across the parking lot to the door. He heard Tilda’s voice raised in a question, and her father’s answer. The key fumbled in the lock, and Thranduil listened very closely as all of Bard’s family filed safely back into their room, and closed the door behind them.

The remaining minutes until sundown crept with the tiny mindlessness of ants, but when the light finally faded from outside the windows Thranduil was out of the door in the span of a human heartbeat. He rapped on the door beside his without hesitation. The pause before it opened was much more leisurely. It was all he could do not to break the door down. He needed to see that Bard was truly there.

But the door did open, and it was Bard standing before him, looking slightly more fortified than the beaten shell of a man that had met Thranduil’s gaze the night before. His lower lip was still swollen where the law officer had struck it, the dark line of dried blood slashing his lip like a bloody fang. Dark circles and bags competed for space, but his eyes themselves were clearer, sharper, filled with that familiar wariness. He kept his hand on the door as he stood on the threshold.

“What’s wrong?” Bard said. “Has something happened?”

Thranduil steadied himself. The rush of relief at seeing Bard before him now was quickly becoming something else. Thranduil’s wounds had grown no less painful after a night without blood. But it was a different ache that made his gaze latch on to the flutter at Bard’s throat. It was all he could do not to grab Bard by the front of his shirt and drag him back to the other room, to throw him down on the bed and revisit the marks he had left on the man’s skin, and create a few more. It was the hunger that drove these thoughts, a cloud passing over the moon and deepening all the shadows, yet also turning them sharper. He would give Bard a reminder that there was no running away from him.

From the room, fearful whispers began. The world snapped back into focus. The children, the burning house, Smaug creeping closer with every moment of darkness. Thranduil blinked, and the hunter went rushing out like a cold, dark tide.  

Thranduil cleared his throat. “I thought—” He bit off the end of his sentence as soon as he heard the tone of his own voice. He took a moment to sanitize the emotion from his voice, to meet Bard’s gaze with detached, level eyes. “It crossed my mind you might have tried to leave.”

Bard blinked up at him with faint surprise. “Where would we go?” he asked aloud, with a vague sense of confusion. Thranduil realized that running away hadn’t so much as crossed the man’s mind. He should have been pleased that his hooks were in so deep. But it wasn’t cruel vindication he felt now. He wanted to step forward and brush the man’s hair back from his face, to soothe his hurts and prove to him that he would find more than a slightly higher chance of survival here. But Thranduil held back—whether it was to protect his own image or to spare Bard the trouble of pushing him away, he couldn’t be sure.

“Tauriel is still unconscious,” Thranduil said. “But we will need to leave as quickly as possible.”

“We’ll be ready.”

It could easily be taken as a dismissal, but Thranduil lingered. He was loathe to leave the man so soon. How luxurious the past few months seemed now, the idea of having Bard to himself for as long as he might like. He hadn’t appreciated it nearly enough.

“What did you tell the children?” he asked in an undertone.

Bard swallowed, and stepped further out of the room, pulling the door nearly closed behind him. “I explained what I could,” he said quietly. “They had seen for themselves that there were monsters. I gave them a name, a shape, a way to kill them. I told them what you are, what Tauriel is—and that you’re the best defense we have against the people who tried to burn us down.”

“Did they ask about… you and me?”

Bard looked away for a moment, staring at the fading purple in the sky. “I told them what I could. They asked me what you ate. I told them you’d been drinking animal blood.”

Thranduil’s lip curled in spite of himself. Bard stared at him with tired eyes. “It’s a more comfortable lie,” he said. “Unless you’d like them to know what kind of monster they’re truly trapped with.”

For some reason, the sentiment made Thranduil’s hackles rise even higher. “Is that what you see me as, then?” he said.

Bard looked at him blankly. “You’re a killer. Like you said, it’s your nature. But beyond that…” He shook his head. “I don’t know what you are anymore. Just that whatever you are is better than what’s chasing us.”

That would have to be enough, Thranduil supposed. But it was an empty, unsatisfying conclusion.

“Smaug will not use motor vehicles,” Thranduil said, crisply changing the subject. “That will not slow him down as much as you might think. He is like a wolf—capable of running great distances at even greater speeds, and physically incapable of tiring. The fledglings he created for his initial assault will all fall apart within the week, which will give us an advantage—assuming he doesn’t make more.”

Bard glanced over his shoulder, to the flickering yellow light of the room within. “Can he catch up with us here? Tonight?”

Thranduil shook his head, weariness making the motion slow. He felt as if his bones themselves were creaking. “When he catches us, it will not be at the end of a desperate sprint. It will be longer, further down the line, when we have finally stopped and think ourselves safe. That is when he will close in upon us, and let our safety turn to ashes before he seals our fate. We can never let that happen, Bard. We can never stop running. Now begins the greatest test of our endurance, and it will last for as long as we live.” The world seemed to grow heavier the longer Thranduil spoke. He closed his eyes for one brief moment.

“There has to be another way,” he heard Bard say softly. Thranduil could only shake his head.

“I have fought long and hard to escape this fate,” he sighed, opening his eyes once again. “Centuries of running. But I was running towards this all along.”

He hadn’t intended to be so open, to let the weariness in his own mind seep into his words. But Bard’s face, though drawn, was settled into an expression of determination. It was a survivor’s face. When Thranduil listened to the faint heartbeats from the room behind him, he knew it was because the man had something worth surviving for.

“We’ll get to this safe house,” Bard said. “And from there… we’ll do what we have to.” 

It was perhaps the truest thing either of them had said so far that night.

 

* * *

 

They drove in shifts, from Thranduil to Bard to Tauriel. Bard was less than thrilled at the prospect of letting Tauriel take the wheel of his truck, but when weariness made his eyes heavy and his reactions slow, he ceded the driver’s seat to her.

When Bard drove, Thranduil took the passenger seat and Tauriel sat in the back. The children squashed as far to the opposite side of the car from her as possible—Sigrid had quickly adjusted their positions so that she sat at Tauriel’s side, a buffer between her younger siblings. There was a shallow, nervous silence from the backseat whenever Tauriel was there. A couple times Thranduil felt her turn her attention to Sigrid with mild, lazy amusement, studying the line of her neck, the nervous twitch of blood under the skin. A sharp look from Thranduil was usually enough to make her turn her eyes out the window once more. As on-edge as she was, Sigrid showed no signs of fear. Thranduil allowed himself a small smile. Bard had raised her well.

They had been driving for hours into the night when Bard leaned forward from the back seat to stick his head into the front. “We need to stop soon,” he said.

Thranduil looked at him sharply. “There’s still hours of night before us.”

“Not at a motel. Tilda needs a bathroom break, and none of us have eaten anything but vending machine food since… we left.” Thranduil glanced back at them. They did not look particularly more or less miserable than they had before, but perhaps that wasn’t saying much. It would be better, smarter, to keep driving. The children could stand to be uncomfortable for another hour or two.

“We’ll stop,” Thranduil said. Bard sank back into the back seat and Thranduil did not look to see if there was approval on his face.

The next time they passed by a ragged collection of buildings by the side of the road—a gas station, a 24 hour diner, and a closed hunting shop—Thranduil pulled over. He could feel Tauriel’s eyes boring into him from the passenger seat, but he would not meet her gaze and give her a chance to start criticizing him. He filed out of the car with Bard in his family and followed them into the restaurant.

They were seated by a waitress who looked in askance at what three adults and as many children were doing out so late at night—but she did not ask questions. The booth was sticky vinyl in a shade of teal that was hard to look at for long. Tilda immediately picked up her menu and flipped to the breakfast section. She was the only one to touch the greasy collection of laminated paper before them.

Tauriel leaned back in the booth, her arms crossed over her chest. “Is anyone else going to comment on how ridiculous this is?” she said. “Two vampires and four sacks of blood fleeing from the most powerful creature on the face of the earth, and we’re all stopping for a burger and fries.” 

“Not now, Tauriel,” Thranduil muttered.

Bard looked between his two older children with a weary expression on his face. “You two should order something.”

“I’m not hungry,” Bain said. Sigrid did not contribute.

Thranduil leaned forward. “Your father is right,” he said. “There’s no way of knowing when you’ll be able to eat again.”

It seemed a perfectly reasonably observation to make, but Bard looked at him sharply. Sigrid—who had retreated into a closed, quiet shell, looked up with pure venom. “Are you seriously trying to be helpful? All of this is your fault in the first place.”

“Sigrid,” Bard warned. He glanced over his shoulder at the waitress, who loitered on the other side of the restaurant with feigned disinterest at the tensions rising in their little booth. The only other patrons were a couple of silent truckers stooped over their coffees at the counter. “Now isn’t the time.”

“You’re criticizing _me_?” she cried. “After everything? How can you just sit there next to them when you know what they are?”

“Sigrid, I swear to you I will have an answer,” Bard said, his voice low and frantic. “But we can’t talk about this—”

“Know what you want to order?” The waitress appeared with everything save a cloud of smoke and sulfur. No one seemed eager to meet her eye.

“Give us another minute,” Bard said tersely, and the waitress gave him a hard, discerning look before sauntering away again.

Thranduil met Sigrid’s gaze once more. He remembered how she’d looked at him when he’d first met her at their dinner table so long ago, full of suspicion and mistrust. There was none of that now. Her suspicions had been confirmed, and she faced them with a cold-burning rage made all the stronger by her fear.

“I don’t know what exactly your father has told you about me,” Thranduil said quietly. “But there are two things that I want you to know: firstly, that in this moment I am you and your family’s best chance at survival. And secondly, that I am equally capable of tearing all your heads off at the first inclination.”

“Thranduil!” The cheap silverware leapt as Bard’s hands slammed down on the table.

“Everything okay here?” On cue, the waitress had appeared again. Thranduil could see a muscle in Bard’s jaw trying to crawl off the bone.

“Three orders of your bottomless pancakes for the kids, and anything else they might ask for,” Bard said shortly. “This gentleman will be leaving his card with you. It will cover it.”

The waitress turned expectantly to Thranduil—he held Bard’s gaze coldly for one long moment before opening his wallet and painstakingly sliding the credit card out of it. He handed it over, and the waitress snapped it up between two fingers before marching away, keeping her thoughts to herself.

She had scarcely left before Bard had clambered out of the booth and grabbed Thranduil by the arm. “We need to talk. Don’t make me regret leaving you alone with them twice,” Bard warned Tauriel as he tugged Thranduil towards the bathroom door. Thranduil let himself be yanked through the door, into a small room with an equally unappealing color scheme, saturated with the smell of cheap disinfectant, urine, and mildew. Bard let his arm go the second they were through the door, and immediate turned to the wall and dragged his fingers through his hair.

Thranduil waited a long moment for the man to speak. When it seemed apparent that nothing was forthcoming, he crossed his arms over his chest. “Well. I don’t think I did anything wrong.”

“Are you serious, Thranduil?” Bard turned back around. Exasperated fingers had turned his already messy hair into an unsalvageable tangle. He jabbed a finger at the door, beyond which their respective charges waited with as much patience as three children and a young vampire could be expected to foster together. “The kids are barely holding on by a thread. In one night they saw their house burned down, almost died, and found out that immortal blood-sucking monsters want you and me and all of us dead! You can’t expect them to just take that and move on.”

“They will have to, if they want to survive,” Thranduil reminded him.

Bard rubbed a hand over his face. “I can’t believe I have to explain this to you, but humans don’t work that way. We can’t just stop feeling things because we have to.” He leaned backwards against the wall, staring at the grimy floor between his feet. He sighed, very quietly. “We all lost everything. Can you even understand that? Do you even know what it means to have a home, let alone have it taken away from you?” There was no note of accusation in his tone—no anger, no fear. Just dull resignation. Bard stared off into space, through the years, at something in the immeasurable distance moving over the horizon. “I’ve lost so much,” he whispered. “One by one, everything just gets stripped away.”

Memory flared, so strong and sudden that it moved through Thranduil like an electric current. Smoke and fire, the smell of oil, the knowledge of the sun creeping closer with every instant—and a smile, a dangerous laugh, a pair of eyes that had taught him how to see. The joy and the pain were inseparable now—he could not think of his sire without recalling her inevitable end. “I understand,” Thranduil said.

Bard laughed harshly. “How could you? You’ve never lost anyone you’ve loved.”

“Do not presume to know what I have or haven’t lost,” Thranduil snapped. The anger was there so quickly he could hardly pinpoint its source. It made the pain of his wounds flare with a similar fire. He turned away from the man then, letting the sudden intensity of Bard’s gaze fall upon his mute, hunched shoulders. He pressed the wounds on his side and let the ache build to a hot iron burning into his flesh. He let one pain eclipse the other, until the other was no more.

“Have you, then?” Bard asked quietly. “Lost someone, I mean.” There was a sense in his words that he did not want an answer, another piece of history that would bind the two of them together.

Thranduil’s teeth clenched in his jaw, as if there was something soft and warm held between them. “It was a long time ago,” he said at last.

After a long moment he heard Bard move, straightening from the wall and stepping up to his back. “It’s never quite long enough,” he said. “Hey. Look—” Bard took Thranduil’s arm, and pulled it to turn him around—Thranduil was unable to hide the grimace that darted over his face, quick as lightening, as the motion inflamed his wounds. Bard’s gaze leapt from his face to the place beneath his coat that his hand had been cradling. “Are you injured?” he asked.

“It’s nothing,” Thranduil said. “It can wait.”

But Bard was already reaching for his coat, undoing the final buttons and pushing it open—his eyes widened when he saw the rips in his clothing, the black blood-ichor running like idle fingers trailing down his side.

“Good God, Thranduil!” Bard cried. He looked up into Thranduil’s face with an expression of accusation. “Why didn’t you say something before?”

“It didn’t seem the time,” Thranduil said softly. He could see Bard’s expression change as he realized what Thranduil meant; exactly how his wounds would have to be cared for.

“Ah,” Bard said. His hands fell away from Thranduil’s coat. “I admit, I hadn’t even thought about—about having to still do… that.” Bard looked down. Thranduil waited for the right words to come, the ones that would guide this conversation back under his control. The only thing that came to him was an apology that would not crystallize into words, let alone the willingness to say them.

“This is what I am, Bard,” he said instead.

Bard sighed. “I know. I’ve accepted it, as best as I can.” When he looked up, his eyes were determined. “Should we now?”

Thranduil glanced around at the sharp-smelling and dimly lit restroom they currently occupied. The short row of stalls was about as appealing as marching back into the diner proper and tap-dancing on the counter.

“Not now,” Thranduil said. “When we stop for the night. We’ll both need time to recover.”

“Then for now, I need you to go back out there and do your best not to remind my children just how close we are to annihilation. Do you think you can do that?”

A rueful smile touched Thranduil’s lips. “I will do my best.”

“I’ll hold you to that. Now let’s go back out there before our waitress gets the wrong idea about what’s going on in here.”

When they made their way back to the table, Thranduil could see that in his absence someone had remembered this meal was being charged to his card, and taken it upon themselves to order what must have been the entire diner’s extensive menu. The kids all sat with a stack of pancakes in front of them, surrounded by plates of bacon, eggs, hash browns, half-eaten sandwiches, french fries. It seemed the children had forgotten their lack of appetite with the promise of hot food in front of them—even Sigrid was eating, although her face was taut with unhappiness. A large bowl of half-eaten ice cream sat on top of Tilda’s pancakes. Tauriel sat with a full glass of water in front of her, using the straw to pick up droplets and gently deposit them on the table. When Thranduil slid into the booth beside her she looked up with a scornful expression.

“Took you long enough,” she said in full hearing of the humans. “You two could always bicker in public like a normal dysfunctional couple.”

Thranduil turned to her. “What was I saying before about ripping heads off?” Tauriel literally rolled her eyes, shooting a conspiratorial look in Sigrid’s direction which the other girl resolutely ignored. Thranduil hadn’t suffered a headache in centuries, but he was beginning to remember what they felt like.

 “The house we’re driving to is another two nights’ drive away,” Thranduil said, looking from Tilda, to Bain, to Sigrid in turn. Tilda squirmed under his gaze, and Bain looked away. Sigrid’s eyes were fixed on her food. “There may be supplies there that we need, and a moment to rest—and plan our next move.”

“Can things go back to normal, then?” Tilda’s high voice piped up.

Thranduil looked at her frankly, remembering Bard’s words. “For a little while,” he said, and it was almost not a lie. “But we can’t stay there for long.” Tilda looked down, and took a large bite of the ice-cream on her plate. He glanced at Bard in spite of himself, and the man nodded in faint approval. A faint twinge of pride rose, with anger short on its heels. He didn’t need the man’s approval. And yet, it felt good to have it.

 

* * *

 

Once more they drove until just before dawn. Thranduil was beginning to tense, feeling the sun creep closer to the horizon even as Tauriel assured him she had somehow found a nearby motel using her phone. They turned into the parking lot, he secured their rooms for the day, and wondered whether this was to be their life now. Constant motion didn’t seem so horrible to Thranduil—the currents of time flowed so quickly around him it sometimes felt as if standing still only made the world move faster. But what kind of life would this be for the humans? And why did he care?

He caught Bard’s eye as the man ushered his children into their room. Bard hesitated on the threshold. Undoubtedly he was remembering their agreement made earlier in the bathroom, thinking of the wounds seeping beneath Thranduil’s coat, and the things that had to happen in order to heal them.

“Kids,” he said gently. “Thranduil and I need to discuss some strategy for a few hours.”

“You’re leaving us alone?” Tilda asked. Even Bain’s hand tightened on his younger sister’s shoulder. 

Tauriel glanced at Thranduil from the side of her eyes. “I take it I’m still on babysitting duty?” she said flippantly. “Or do you want me to rent a separate room while you two get insufferably sentimental?”

Thranduil glanced at Bard in askance—the man beckoned Sigrid over, murmured something to her while looking in Tauriel’s direction. The girl nodded. The decision was made. Sigrid stared at Tauriel with bravado that may or may not have been false, looking her up and down. “I think I can handle her,” she said, loud enough for Tauriel to hear. Tauriel only smiled as she followed the girl and closed the door behind them, leaving Bard and Thranduil alone outside the waiting silence of their own room, the open door showing only the outline of lightless shapes within. Bard looked as if he were about to say something, but he paused, and shook his head. In the end, he entered the darkness without comment, and Thranduil went with him.

Bard hesitated as Thranduil closed the door softly behind them, lingering at the foot of one of the two beds which dominated most of the floor space. The only light filtered through the window, yellow streetlights moving through yellowed curtains. Thranduil’s finger hesitated on the light switch—in the end, he let his hand fall without turning it on. It didn’t seem right to illuminate this moment, where so much of Bard was already submerged beyond his reach or understanding.

Instinct made Thranduil’s attention gravitate towards the bathroom, a surrogate for all the nights Bard had guided him onto the cold tiles under florescent lights, before allowing him to lower his mouth to the skin. Even when they were bound up in each other closer than any human could contemplate, Bard had made sure Thranduil did not forget that he had sold his blood, not his soul.

But Bard did not walk towards the bathroom now. He stood, his back still to Thranduil, one hand idly trailing over the coverlet at the foot of the bed.  The weight of their encounter in Bard’s garage a scant two nights ago hung between them with all the presence and darkness of a storm cloud. Thranduil could not help but think of it, try as he might to cast it from his mind. Bard had not been so cold then. The fire in his eyes had been unnerving, exhilarating—and then terrifying. Perhaps neither of them knew how to contain it. They’d be doomed to these stunted little displays, frustration building up until it tore free in a rush of violence and lust, scouring the ground between them before anything had a chance to grow.

Bard turned to look at him at last. The light from the window bled across his chin and neck and chest, as if he’d taken a bite of it and let it run down from his lips.

“You know I haven’t forgiven you, right?” His voice was hoarse with an emotion Thranduil could not place. Thranduil could only nod. It didn’t matter what he wasn’t being forgiven for. There was so much that lay between them now. He would never ask Bard for that. But there were other things, similar in effect and sentiment, that he might take in its stead.

“I understand.”

Bard looked down, and seemed to make up his mind. He pulled his shirt up over his head and lay it down on the foot of the bed, before sitting down beside it. The light moved over the scars Thranduil had left on him, pale as worms lying still beneath the skin, dozens of nights that he had pressed himself to the man’s flesh and drank it into himself.

Bard watched him, quiet, expectant, as Thranduil slowly shed his coat. His wounds left a bitter scent in the close air of the motel room. He sank to his knees at the foot of the bed, looking up into Bard’s face. He didn’t know what he was searching for there—he couldn’t say if he found it. There was no time now to dig around in each other, pull pieces out and inspect them under the light. Thranduil needed what Bard had, right beneath the skin.

Thranduil leaned forward, and pressed his lips over Bard’s heart. The world moved away and crowded in close all at once, centered on the blood, always the blood. He parted his lips, and broke the skin, felt the man’s breath seize briefly in his chest, and then began to suck.

The moments seemed to last as long as every interminable pause of Bard’s heartbeat, then flew by as quickly as the beats themselves. Bard tasted thin, flat, weary beyond belief. The pain in Thranduil’s wounds began to slip away almost instantly, but the ache that started in his chest matched Bard’s in time. He felt the man’s grief, a home lost, a life razed to the ground. He felt the man’s rage, at Thranduil, at the world, for doing this to him a second time in his life. In a way, Thranduil’s presence was a relief. When his wife died, there had been no one to hate, nothing to rage against, his pain seething inside of himself until it ate its way through him. But this time, this pain had been inflicted on him. This time, he had someone to blame.

The pain was familiar. It found like kind in Thranduil’s heart, and joined it.

When Thranduil closed the wound, he stayed with his forehead pressed to the man’s breast until Thranduil began to creep back into himself. He slowly became aware that Bard’s arms were draped around his shoulders—that the man’s head had fallen forward to rest upon his own, breaths stirring Thranduil’s hair as delicately as a sleeper’s—but Bard was not asleep.

At last, Thranduil forced himself to pull back, to look up into Bard’s face and compare it to the sensations still worming at the edge of his consciousness. The man’s eyes were half-closed, exhausted. Instinctively, Thranduil’s eyes darted to the cut on his lip. The sharp little line of dried blood, the faint suggestion of swelling. Thranduil saw himself leaning forward to take it between his lips, tasting the copper on it, the sweetness, the way Bard’s mouth would move with his the way it had back in the garage. In his mind, he saw Bard welcoming it. He saw the night going very differently, of something finally, truly _happening_ in a long string of events that ultimately meant nothing.

He saw himself pull back even further, and stand up, and turn away. That was the only vision he allowed to become a reality.

“You should get some sleep,” he said quietly. “Tomorrow we have to be strong.” And the next day. And the day after that. Nothing but one strong day after another, until they finally weren’t strong enough.

In the morning, they were driving again, towards nothing else and more of the same.  


	24. Chapter 24

The world scrolled by the windows, drowned in darkness and the white noise of the tires on the asphalt, and Bard was no longer a part of it. Amazing, really, how quickly a life could be crushed down until it fit within the confines of a single truck. Everything they had, everything they were, was boxed-up inside. Their own personal ark. Familiar radio stations turned to static and then talk shows, country music. The children listened without comment. They were lucky, Bard thought, that it was human nature to adapt. The children adjusted quickly to waking at sundown, to driving until dawn. How lucky, how very lucky.

Most of the time exhaustion had Bard drawn-and-quartered. He forced himself to stay awake long after dawn, his children sleeping while he sat up watching the motel door. Each new day the sun rose on a new landscape, transformed by the miles they’d covered in the dark. When they drove, he saw almost nothing but the wash of headlights on the road before them, tree branches sliding past, giving way to fields, ditches, only what the faint light of the car could reveal. It was like living between long blinks, stretches of darkness and sudden flashes of change. Blink: the forest was gone, replaced by rolling fields and a strip mall. Blink: they were in a town, a nicer hotel, a Chili’s across the street where Sigrid shot straw wrappers at Bain across the table. Blink: the trees were back, but none like Bard had ever seen, straight and pale on the rocky ground. There were some days when Bard woke up in a motel room he could scarcely remember arriving at, and he couldn’t so much have named the state they were currently in. None of it felt real.

Tilda’s head on his shoulder as the car jostled over poorly maintained roads; Bain’s fingers tapping nervously on the beat-up fabric of the seat; the cutting flash of Tauriel’s eyes in the rear-view mirror; the ache in his legs, his joints, his bones, from sitting in a car for eleven hours a day. He had to hold onto it all somehow. He couldn’t afford to float away.

“This _is_ real,” he told his reflection as he straightened the collar of his shirt in the dingy motel mirror. His voice sounded hoarse, unused, yet too loud in the hum of the florescent lights. A rap sounded on the door—Tauriel’s curt footsteps moving back away.

Time to go again.

They stopped by a Walmart when it finally became clear that they would need more than the sparse provisions and change of clothes stuffed into Sigrid’s backpack. With the gleam of the parking lot lights turning their faces pale and gaunt, they all looked like the living dead. Thranduil stepped forward as soon as they were out of the car, and offered Bard his credit card.

“I don’t need your money.” How odd the familiar words of their old argument sounded in Bard’s mouth.

“You’re dead,” Thranduil said. “You died in the house fire. If your cards aren’t already cancelled, the police will undoubtedly be curious as to how a corpse is buying groceries.”

Bard might have argued, if he hadn’t already lied. He did need the money, of course. He accepted the card quickly, stuffing in into a pocket.  The children were already drifting in the direction of the store’s entrance. “Are you coming?”

Thranduil stared at him, caught off guard. Bard wasn’t sure why he had asked. Yet the impulse had been so natural he had not even questioned it. Before Thranduil could answer him he shook his head, letting the question fall away, and followed his children towards the store’s wheezing automatic doors.

They wandered the shopping aisles, the semi-deserted netherworld of any discount store after eleven PM. They picked up clothes, canned food, toothpaste, deodorant. At some point Bain came back with his arms full of candy, practically enough to fill half the cart. Bard didn’t say anything. Why would he? Would any of them get to go to a dentist again? If they lived long enough to get fat and diabetic with mouths full of cavities, Bard would call that a victory.

Still, he found himself picking up a bottle of vitamins. The larger bottle, enough to last a few months at least. The weight of it in his hands was a comfort, a talisman.

When they pushed the cart back to the truck, Thranduil was leaning against the side with a cigarette in his mouth. Bard almost stopped in his tracks, the feeling like slipping on a patch of black ice. Suddenly, he was stepping out of the bar months before, when Thranduil had lit a cigarette just like that one and ushered him into the dark.

Thranduil caught Bard’s look, and misinterpreted it. “It helps keep my head clear,” he said, glancing at the children as they helped Tauriel load up the back of the car. Bard didn’t need him to clarify. Night after night spent squashed in a car with four warm bodies couldn’t have been easy for him. And of course, he was hungry. Bard could feel it, even now—a rough, dry, hot feeling under his skin. Bard wasn’t about to congratulate him for his restraint in not eating the children. But Thranduil crushed the half-finished butt beneath his shoe without Bard telling him not to smoke in the car.

Bard found himself staring at the shopping bags stuffed into the back of the truck—slowly, they were repopulating their lives. It felt wrong. His clothes were waiting for him back at the house, as was his toothbrush and the dishtowels his grandmother had embroidered for his wedding, the book of crosswords he’d been steadily working his way through each morning before the kids got up, he’d been one word away from finishing, if he could only remember the clue—

Bard swallowed the lump in his throat, and tried to stop thinking.

The kids were what mattered now. They were alive, and as long as that was the case they still had a chance—at what? Normal lives were out of the question. He had no idea what he could even reasonably hope for. Living to see the summer, maybe. That felt attainable, but how could he know?

So. He had his children. He had his truck. He had a few changes of clothes, a few other items necessary for comfortable living. And he had Thranduil—or maybe Thranduil had him. Bard wasn’t quite sure yet.

It was Bard’s turn to drive. Thranduil took the passenger seat as Tauriel slunk into the back, and then they were off again.

“Two more nights and we should be there,” Tauriel said.

“Thank God,” Bain muttered, sinking lower into his seat. “If I’m stuck in this car for much longer I’m going to lose my mind.”

“We can drop you off wherever you like,” Tauriel said. Sigrid looked like she wanted to elbow both of her neighbors in the throat. Tilda sighed, engrossed in a game on the smartphone that Tauriel had shoved into her hands to shut her up. Bard could almost pretend that this was like any other car trip—they were just going away for a weekend, for a week, for a little while—and then they’d turn around, they’d go home.

For a minute, he let himself believe it. Just a minute, and that had to be enough.

 

* * *

 

More driving, more strange beds and fitful sleep, and no matter what Tauriel said it felt like they drew no closer to their destination. Where were they going? What were they going towards? The questions darted through Bard’s mind like the lines on the highway, an endless blank procession, unanswered.

On what Tauriel claimed was the last day, the road began to rise. It brought them up, slowly at first, and then winding backwards on itself. Bard rolled his window down from the back seat and peered into the darkness. All he saw were the scraggly outlines of trees, and all he heard was the wind. Thranduil met his eyes in the rear-view mirror more often now, though they did not speak.

“Slow down,” Tauriel said. She leaned forward in the passenger seat, squinting at something on the side of the road made stark and shocking in the headlights. An old mailbox, Bard realized, slumped to the side on a rotting wooden post, the metal numbers on its side long since rusted away. “This is it.”

Thranduil turned down the dirt-packed road. Bard tightened his arm around Tilda’s shoulder and with his other hand made sure his stakes were within easy reach.

They followed the road for so long Bard was worried it would shrivel into nothing, when they saw the house. It was slung low to the ground, little more than a shack. In the moonlight its jagged edges and deep shadows made it look long-deserted. But there was a light on somewhere inside, and a thin wisp of smoke rose from the chimney to brush over the stars.

Thranduil parked the car. For a while, no one moved. “Someone lives here,” Thranduil said in a low voice. “A human.”

“They failed to mention that,” Tauriel said.

“Clearly. This can’t be the right place.”

“I followed the Durins’ directions to the letter.”

“None of our kind can enter without an invitation. A rather useless safe house if we can’t get into it.” At that, Thranduil glanced into the back seat, where Bard watched them both. “Perhaps if someone was to win their trust, and procure an invitation for all of us…”

“And then what? If this is the wrong place, there’s nothing for us here.”

Thranduil glanced at the clock on the dashboard. “Sunrise will be here soon,” he said. “We’re far from shelter. If we keep moving, we’ll have to retrace our steps. Back towards Smaug.”

At once Bard’s open window felt far too exposed. With the kids, Bard might be able to make a convincing enough story to get everyone passage into the house. And then—his mind was a blank that he didn’t want to fill in. Once Thranduil and Tauriel were inside, things would happen as they would. The house seemed to crouch, bracing for their decision.

They had no chance to make it. Before Bard could speak again, a shadow moved over the cracks of light past the window—seconds later, the door was flung open from within. Outlined in the light from within was possibly the largest man Bard had ever seen, a colossal figure whose eyes seemed to pierce straight through the darkness and find each and every one of their faces in the car. For a long moment he merely stood there, glowering half in shadow.

“Are you going to stay out there all night?” he boomed. “Get inside, all of you. Before something else gets the same idea.”

Thranduil and Bard shot each other a look. From the back seat, Tauriel snorted. “Well. That was easy.”

 

* * *

 

The main room of the cabin served as a dining room, kitchen, and living room. Bard found himself sitting at the table, his children close around him, eyes scanning the room. The windows had the kind of shutters that could have survived a hurricane throwing itself against the outside of the house. Even with its ancient floors and rough walls, the house felt as if it had lasted this long for a reason. Time had compacted it, made its matter hard and dense. The yellow light seemed only to make the shadows darker, beating them back into hulking shapes in the corners.

When it came to hulking shapes, however, their host could not be matched. He towered even over Thranduil, and stood with his shoulders hunched. His face was hidden behind a thick, dark beard, but the eyes that peered out of it were sharp. He was also human. Bard found that most surprising.

“Kili mentioned you might be coming,” the man said from his place at the stove, where he was ladling something out of a pot into four giant bowls. The smell was unbearably delicious.

“Kili’s been here?” Tauriel said.

“Aye, he has. A good number of the rest, by my count. They’re nearby. Hunting.”

A beat of silence. Bard looked to Thranduil. He hadn’t settled down at the table with the others—from the moment he had stepped into the house he’d been on edge, pacing and taking breaths through his nose, scenting the air like a wolf. Bard caught his gaze now. _Are we in danger?_ he almost asked, but it was a useless question, an obvious answer.

Their host turned around, four bowls balanced in his massive hands. He deposited one before Bard and the children each. “Chili,” he grunted.

Bard stared at the blood-red chunky mixture in the bowls before them. It was very, very red. He put a hand on Tilda’s before she could reach for her spoon. “What’s in it?” Bard said casually.

Something behind the man’s beard crinkled. It might have been a smile. “Beans. Tomato. Onion. Spices. And there’s some bread on the counter to go with it.” He went to tear off a few chunks. “The food’s safe. I’m a vegetarian.”

Bard slowly let go of Tilda’s hand. All of them began to eat. It was possibly the best chili Bard had ever had, and he wiped the bowl clean with the hunk of fresh bread.

“So,” Tauriel said. “Who exactly are you?”

The man sank down into a chair that looked like it had been built out of unhewn tree-trunks. Even then, the thick beams creaked. “My name is Beorn,” he said, placing a hand over his chest. “I keep the cabin secure and ready in times of need. I live here, so that any of their sort needs an invitation to get in. Helps keep enemies out.”

At the name, Bard glanced Thranduil. He had settled against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest. Bard couldn’t read his expression, but he could feel his tension.

“And Thorin is here?” Tauriel pressed.

“Yes. Him, and the others that survived. They’ve been filtering in the past couple nights, but from what I hear, I doubt there’s many more to come.”

Thranduil and Tauriel exchanged a look. “And when will they be back?” Tauriel asked.

Beorn looked up and seemed to stare straight through the wood of the door. He almost seemed to snuffle the air. “About twenty seconds from now, I reckon.”

Before Bard had time to wonder whether Beorn was truly human or not, the door burst open so hard it slammed into the wall. Tilda yelped, and Bard grabbed her as he leapt to his feet, tugging Sigrid and Bain behind him. Three strangers stood in the doorway, stakes at the ready. One of them was wearing an extravagant hunting hat. More noticeably, another had a dead deer slung over his shoulder.

“Who’s here?” the one in the hat demanded.

Beorn stood to his full towering height, brows coming together like a hand cracking the other’s knuckles. “If they’re inside, they were invited,” he rumbled. “A fact which makes my presence here pointless, if you ram the door off its hinges every time you sense a stranger!”

The man in the hat lowered his stake, and, after a moment, tilted his head. “You may have a point there.”

“Tauriel! You’re safe!” The man with a deer slung over his shoulder let his cargo fall to the floor with a sickening thud. He rushed up to the table and yanked Tauriel into an embrace—Bard pulled Tilda closer to him, trying to turn her head from the carcass on the floor. The other two stayed where they were. Bard felt the prickle of tension in the air, like heat weighing on a dry prairie. One spark would ignite it. He glanced towards his two older children, and knew they understood their visitors weren’t human.

Tauriel pulled back from the stranger with the most genuine smile Bard had ever seen on her face. “I was worried about you as well,” she said. “Everything happened so fast.”

“But not too fast for us, eh?” the man said with a quick grin. “Out of the frying pan, into the fire, and we still have yet to get burned!”

“I wouldn’t say that.” Thranduil’s voice was quiet, but it stole over the room like an icy draft. The smiles faded. Tauriel took a step back.

“Well. This is an unexpected surprise.” This voice was a new one, coming from just outside the door. The other two hunters stepped aside as if on cue, and the last of their party entered. Dark-haired and bearded, his eyes were as flat and cold as an arctic plain. His mouth was twisted to one side in a cruel smile, an expression that suited his face well and appeared to be well-practiced.

“Thorin,” Thranduil said, his voice utterly devoid of inflection.

“Come crawling here for safety, have you?” Thorin said, shrugging his coat off and placing it on the rack. “I had assumed you’d not be able to unbend your pride.”

“Pride has nothing to do with it. I’m here to settle a debt.” Bard watched Thranduil step forward, the ancient floorboards creaking under his weight. Bard’s grip around Tilda tightened. He found himself scanning for exits, and finding none.

“We have nothing for you here,” Thorin said. “I suggest you keep moving.”

“Easy for you to say,” Thranduil said. “You used me and my own for your purposes, and would have had us die just as easily.”

“Tauriel came to us on her own,” Thorin snapped. “Perhaps you ought to keep a closer eye on your fledglings.”

“We don’t want any trouble,” Bard said, undercutting the anger on Thranduil’s face. He could feel the situation spinning out of control.

For the first time, Thorin’s eyes found Bard. He paused. “A human?” he mused aloud. “A regular brood of them, even. Tauriel failed to mention that.”

Thranduil’s slow pacing brought him to Bard’s side. “They are none of your concern.”

“Brought them along for emergencies, then? From the looks of that one’s complexion you’ve been feeding well.”  

Bard had tensed even before Thorin’s cold gaze turned back to him. From the corner of his eyes he saw Sigrid’s head snap up, felt Bain start to tense. He could not meet their eyes.

“You will not speak of them that way.” Thranduil’s voice was conversational, and yet Bard felt the hairs on the back of his neck rising, all at once.

Thorin crossed his arms over his chest, flanked by his three hunters. “Or what?”

Thranduil opened his mouth.

“Fighting already, are we?”

Bard jumped at the sound of a new voice. Its tone was faintly chiding. If Beorn was the largest man Bard had ever seen, the figure who stepped through the door next was possibly the smallest. Short, pudgy, with a mop of golden-brown hair on his head and a pair of glasses falling down his nose, he was absolutely the last sort of person Bard would have ever expected to come walking through the door. In his arms were what appeared to be two bags of groceries.

He passed between Thorin and Thranduil on a brisk path to the kitchen counter. “Don’t suppose you two might think of something better to do,” he commented. “No reason to do Smaug’s job for him.”

“Have we met?” Thranduil’s voice was icy, but under the force of the newcomer’s utter disregard, the tension in the air was already sagging.

The man’s smile was a mild challenge. “Bilbo Baggins is the name.”

“I haven’t heard of you.”

“Oh? I’m afraid I’ve heard quite a bit about you. But I don’t put too much stock in it.” Bilbo shot a glance at Thorin. “Are we all inclined to stand around posturing for the rest of the night? The way I see it, we just gained a handful of new recruits. Weren’t you just saying how we didn’t have enough manpower, Thorin? Or are we not all Smaug’s enemies?”

A muscle in Thorin’s jaw flexed, but he did not argue. Bard found himself wondering at this underwhelming man who could seemingly maneuver an angry vampire into doing exactly what he told him to. At long last, Thorin’s arms crossed over his stocky chest. “Why are you here?” he demanded of Thranduil without prelude. Yet all the same, it was a concession.

Thranduil, too, seemed to weigh the room’s atmosphere before he spoke. “We were searching for temporary shelter. Perhaps some supplies—or reparations.”

Thorin’s smile was cutting. “Reparations?”

Thranduil took a step forward, placing himself subtly between Thorin and Bard’s family. “Whatever supplies you have, whatever escape plan you’ve designed, you’d best make room for us. You’ve dragged us into this. You owe us that much.”

“How ironic for you to speak of what is owed.”

“Thorin,” Kili said, seizing the other man’s arm in a rough grip. He said something in a language Bard did not recognize, his voice low and urgent. Thorin’s expression did not change. When he turned back to Bilbo, his face was just as hard.

“Sunrise is coming,” he said curtly. “Give them rooms. Come nightfall tomorrow, we’ll decide our course.”

Bilbo nodded, relief written clearly on his face. Without another word, Bard found himself and his children led from the room, Bilbo guiding them with Thranduil and Tauriel at his heels. Bard could feel the eyes boring into them as they went, and for once he was grateful to have Thranduil at his back.  

Bilbo led them down a narrow, windowless hallway, and then stopped in front of what appeared to be a closet. When he opened it, a gust of cold, damp air rolled over Bard’s face and sent a prickle inching down his spine. In the tiny space before them, a hole had been cut from the floor, and a ladder led into the darkness below. Bilbo met Bard’s hesitant look with a smile.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” he said, and began to climb down. The darkness swallowed his curly head quickly enough.

“Da, I don’t want to go down there,” Tilda whispered, pressing closer to him. He ruffled her hair, though his hands felt liable to shake.

“It’s alright,” he murmured, trying to believe it himself. “I’ll go down first, and have a look around. You can wait up here for the time being.” He met the eyes of his older children in turn. _Look after her._ Sigrid nodded, and Bain settled a comforting hand on Tilda’s shoulder.

“Be on your guard,” Thranduil murmured as Bard stepped up to the ladder. “The Durins are not our friends.”

Bard didn’t need to ask for clarification. He’d seen enough in the past five minutes to get a good idea of just how welcome their group was. Still, there was nothing else to do, nowhere else to go. He began to climb.

The air grew colder as he shuffled his way down the ladder, into darkness. There was the immediate sensation of being underground, of cool wet earth clustering in from all sides, the weight of the house from above. It seemed that Bard had been climbing down longer than should have been possible before his feet touched solid ground—but when he craned his neck up, the square of light from above was no further away than a high ceiling.

A touch on his shoulder nearly made Bard jump out of his skin—but it was only Bilbo, his glasses turned bright and blind by the glare of light from above.

“There should be a switch on the wall near you,” he said. Bard reached out, and his hands found a cold, gritty surface—he moved them over the wall, groping without sight, until his fingers caught. He pulled down. At once, a yellowed light from above flickered to life.

They were standing in a small room carved from the bedrock. The walls were smoothed in places, rough in others; whatever had worn them away had clearly cared little for appearances. There was no furniture, no decorations—just a series of doors lined up against the wall, turned to face them like many eyes. No windows, of course. No chance of any sunlight getting in.

“Bard?” Thranduil’s voice called out softly from above.

Bard glanced at Bilbo before squinting up at the trapdoor. “I’m fine. Tell Sigrid it’s okay for everyone to follow.”

“We’re a little pressed for space at the moment,” Bilbo continued, making no mention of the fact that all of his guests seemed to distrust his motives for not having them killed. “You’ll have to share between you.”

“We’ll take whatever we can get,” Bard said quickly. “As long as it’s safe.”

“We’re all as safe here as we could hope. Assuming they don’t kill each other,” Bilbo said with a nod at Thranduil, who had just about reached the bottom of the ladder. Bard had no reply.

Bilbo led them through one of the carved doorways, which in turn opened on a stone hallway—the floor was uneven, and sloped downwards, and though there were many more doorways, most were covered with curtains rather than doors. Bilbo led them to the end, clicking his tongue in thought before pointing two different doorways.

“There are beds in these rooms, and they’re as warm and dry as could be hoped,” Bilbo said. “You can pick whichever are available—and of course, there’s food upstairs for those that need it.”

“And what about those that don’t need it?” Thranduil asked. “What is Thorin feeding his lackeys?”

“Ah.” Bard tried to ignore the way Bilbo’s eyes darted to him. “Well. The hunting in the area is still good—animals, mostly. But we had some supplies frozen here for emergencies. I can see about getting permission for you to partake. Unless you needed it now…?”

Thranduil glanced at Tauriel—she shook her head slightly. To Bard’s relief, Thranduil did not look his direction at all. “We can wait,” he told Bilbo, and that was that.

They divided up once more, separating based on the number and size of beds in the room. It seemed Beorn had been working on this sanctuary for some time—the furnishings were sparse, but comfortable, despite the gloomy surroundings. The cots looked like they had been rescued from roadsides, junkyards, moving sales. Sigrid, Bain and Tilda settled down in the room with two twin beds, Bain taking one and the girls sharing the other. Bard sat on the floor between them, stroking Tilda’s hair until her eyes began to droop.

“How long are we staying here, Da?” she asked, her voice thick with sleep already.

Bard forced himself to offer her a smile. “I don’t know, darling. We’ll have to wait and see.”

Her eyes closed. “I want to go home,” she whispered into the misshapen pillow. She was asleep before Bard had time to think of a reply. Sigrid watched from the bed beside her, expression inscrutable. Bard met her gaze, blinking away the pain and loss and fear that threatened to rise up and sweep him away every time he remembered where they were, how they had come to be here. He wondered if she and Bain were thinking about what Thorin had said. Whether they were inspecting his neck for bite marks. The thought made his stomach twist.

“I’ll be in the other room,” he said hoarsely. “Get what sleep you can.”

“Are they all monsters, Da?” Bain spoke up as Bard turned to leave.

Bard wasn’t sure what his son was asking—are they all vampires, or are all vampires monsters? “I don’t know,” Bard said, too tired even to lie. Bain simply nodded. His face was resolved. He had never looked older.

In the other room Thranduil sat on the edge of a queen-sized mattress lying on the floor, staring into nothing until Bard paused in the doorway. His eyes raised to Bard’s. There was exhaustion in them, more than Bard could remember seeing.

“I need to talk to you,” Bard said. There was nowhere to sit, so Bard stopped a few paces away and remained standing. Thranduil stared up at him, unblinking, offering none of the human relief of blinking or averting his gaze. “Are my children safe?” Bard asked.

“No. But they are safer here than elsewhere. Thorin’s coven will not likely harm them for as long as they are guests under his roof.”

“‘Not likely’ isn’t good enough.”

“It’s all that I can offer.”

Bard turned around, staring blankly at the rocky walls around them. “I wanted to ask you about something else. Another possible solution.”

Thranduil’s silence from behind him was as hard as the rock before his eyes. “What solution.” Not a question, for it did not encourage an answer.

“You said that Smaug would pursue me until I died, that the only option was to keep running.” Bard’s voice echoed ever so slightly against the stone. The sound of his own words spurred him to turn around, to meet Thranduil’s gaze once more. “What if I stop running?”

“Then you would be dead.”

“I know. And would that satisfy him?”

Thranduil stared at him a long time. “You would sacrifice yourself?”

“If it saved them? Without hesitation.”

Slowly, Thranduil’s eyes closed. A sigh without breath. “He will not spare your children, Bard. Even both our deaths would not stop him. He came here not to kill, but to eradicate.”

Anger, disappointment, relief. They kneaded at Bard’s stomach like cruel fingers in his flesh. “You can’t know that for sure,” he argued, knowing it wasn’t true.

Thranduil sighed, his eyes raised to Bard’s in an exhausted plea. “Bard. I don’t want you thinking like this.”

“I can’t stop being a father to my children. They will always come first. That’s one thing even you can’t change.”

Anger flared in Thranduil’s eyes as quickly as a struck match—it was snuffed out a moment later. “No,” he said. “I suppose I can’t.”

Bard stared at him a moment longer, trying to see into him—but whatever bond there was between them, it was still and silent now.

“Bard,” Thranduil called, stopping him as he turned for the door. “Even if your death could somehow protect your children, I would do everything in my power to prevent it. And that is one thing that _you_ cannot change.”

Bard found himself actually smiling—a bitter, unhappy smile. Business as usual between them, it seemed. As always, they would do everything in their power to stop the other from getting what they wanted.

 

* * *

 

Sunlight streamed in through the single open window in the cabin by the time Bard returned to the upper level. He was so exhausted that he could scarcely haul himself up the ladder’s rungs, but he knew he could not sleep yet. All the other windows were closed, the shutters bolted. The cabin could be made into a bubble of night if needed, presumably in case any of the creatures below had need of something or someone above.

Bilbo was sitting at the table, and offered Bard a tired smile as he entered. A mug of tea sat by his elbow, steam rising in idle whorls in the sunlight. The sight made something in Bard’s chest feel hollow with how normal it appeared.

“I thought you might be back,” Bilbo said. “The kettle’s just boiled, if you’d like some tea.”

Bard shook his head, settling in to the chair across from Bilbo. “How did you know I’d look for you?”

Bilbo shrugged. “You have questions. And you’re like me.” He smiled at Bard, this time without reservation. “It’s nice to have another human around. I like keeping the window open, letting a little sun in.”  

“And Beorn, he’s…?”

“Beorn? Who knows. I suppose we all have our strange little quirks, when we live the way we do.”

“And what way is that?”

Bilbo glanced up at him, a sudden shrewdness in his eyes. “Ah. You’re… well, new to this, aren’t you?”

“I met Thranduil at the beginning of last fall. So yes. I’m not even sure what ‘this’ is.” Bard stared blankly at his hand on the table. He was starting to wish he’d taken Bilbo up on that cup of tea, just to give his hands something to do other than clench into fists.

“I see.” From Bilbo’s tone, Bard knew that he truly did. He found himself inspecting the man across from him more closely, noticing the bags under his eyes, the way his face looked like something worn-out with age and use.

“How did you end up here?” Bard asked at last.

Bilbo smiled wryly. “That’s a big question.”

“I have time.”

“Do you? It seems to me you’re about to pass out at the table. Yes, yes,” he said, raising a hand against the start of Bard’s protests. “I know. You won’t sleep until you get your answers. Trust me, I remember what it was like not knowing anything.” Bilbo took a long breath, and then an even longer sip of his tea. He seemed to be gathering his memories to himself, lining them up in an orderly line.

“I was a doctor,” he began. “General practice. I suppose I still am in some capacity, though I haven’t officially seen a patient in over ten years—however long it’s been since I met Thorin.”

“ _Ten_ _years_?” Bard repeated. He wasn’t sure what horrified him more—the idea that Bilbo had somehow managed to survive living with a vampire for so long, or that he had actually wanted to.

But Bilbo was nodding as if it meant nothing. “It hasn’t been easy. Not everyone in our situation can claim to be so lucky—but I’m getting ahead of myself. I should tell my story first, and then the rest of it can come after.

“I first met Thorin under… less than ideal circumstances. At the time, I was going through a crisis of faith. My work on call at the hospital had pushed me to the brink; I saw so much pain every day, and could do so little about it, that I scarcely believed in the goodness of what I did at all. On the night that it happened I was on my rounds, and had gone to check up on a patient: a man with stage four lung cancer who wasn’t likely to last the night. When I found him, he was dead—but he wasn’t alone.” Bilbo turned his mug in his hands as if searching for a better grip, his eyes far away. “I was terrified, of course. As Thorin told me later, it was a bad time for him—he had isolated himself from his coven, just barely hanging on. He probably should have killed me then and there, for neatness’s sake. He didn’t. Obviously.”

Bilbo shrugged to himself. It was more of a shudder. “I saw more of him. There were always patients close to death, too sick or exhausted to put up much of a fight, or for their deaths to start raising questions. I know that’s why he chose them—it wasn’t any kind of charity on his part. I know he’d hate for me to give you that impression.” His smile was grim now. “But I told myself it was kindness.”

“You just let him kill your patients?” Bard made no effort to keep the shock, the disgust from his voice.

Bilbo met his eyes unflinchingly. “Do you know how much pain, how much death is contained within a hospital? I saw it every day, and it broke me long before Thorin found me. I thought of him as a sort of angel of death—doing what I couldn’t, what I had sworn an oath never to do. We all found our peace, me, Thorin, and his victims. That’s what I told myself. I know now he was only doing what his nature demanded of him.”

“That doesn’t make it any less evil.”

“No, I suppose not. But we have our ways of coping, don’t we?” Bard couldn’t look at Bilbo’s smile for long. It seemed to reach out for him in unpleasant ways, as if Bilbo saw something in him that Bard himself was unaware of.

“After a while, he had fed enough to gather his strength, and he moved on,” Bilbo continued. “The next time I saw him was months later, and it was no coincidence. Ever since seeing what he was, I had started on a different kind of research. Trying to discover what he was, and how he was made. I never did figure that out on my own. But Thorin had been keeping an eye on me, and I stumbled across something that drew him back.”

Bard remembered Tauriel’s words in the aftermath of the fire. “The serum.”

Bilbo’s eyebrows rose. “Its prototype, at least. I suppose Tauriel told you something about it. She didn’t know the whole of it, of course. But there will be time to discuss it with the others. For now it’s me and Thorin you want to know about, yes?”

Bard let his eyes wander out the window. It seemed he could see all the unsavory questions crowding up against the smears in the glass, all struggling to get in. He chose one at random. “Are you his pet?”

The laugh that burst from Bilbo’s mouth was more of a squawk. “If he ever called me that, I might just stake him.”

“What, then?” Bard pressed. “He’s held you captive for ten years—”

“One moment,” Bilbo interrupted. “He hasn’t held me captive. I’m here on my own free will.”

Bard stared at Bilbo blankly until the other man sighed. “I’m sorry. It’s been so long, I forget what it was like in the early days. Though I’m not sure I was ever truly like you. I suppose we’re different people, as are Thorin and Thranduil. You probably find it hard to understand why I would want to stay with him.”

“That’s an understatement.”

“Is it? I think if you examine your own experiences, you could make yourself understand. Thorin and I have a bond, just like you and Thranduil do.”

“We don’t have a bond,” Bard snapped. “I don’t know why you would think we do.”

Bilbo raised an eyebrow. “He certainly leapt to your defense rather quickly during that little scene earlier.”

“He was merely defending his property. That’s the only bond we share—one of ownership. As far as Thranduil sees it, at least.” Bard made no effort to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

“There is an adjustment period,” Bilbo admitted. “Boundaries that need to be established. But things smooth out over time.”

“This man almost killed me on multiple occasions,” Bard said. “He threatened my children. He terrorized me for months. He put me and my family through hell. I don’t _want_ things to smooth out.”

“That may change,” Bilbo said. “Thranduil has time. And now, so do you. As things progress, it will seem natural.” Bilbo smiled. The gesture seemed an unconscious one. “They have that pull, don’t they? Once they take hold of you, there’s no getting out. After all, where would we go?”

Bilbo’s words, spoken so matter-of-factly, seemed to yank the ground out from beneath Bard’s feet. He raised his hands to press them over his face, as if the pressure could push down the blank, animal panic that rose up in his throat, in his chest, behind his eyes. “You’re saying I have to live like this,” he stated to his palms. “That this is never going to end.”

From Bilbo’s direction there was a stretch of awkward silence. “Well, yes,” he said at last. “But what I’m trying to tell you is, it isn’t as bad as you think. You’ll get used to it.”

“Get used to being bound to a murderer?” Bard let his hands fall away so he could pin Bilbo with a glare. “And my children? Will they simply ‘get used to it’ as well?” He laughed, a tad shrilly. “That’s assuming we survive the week, of course. How careless of me to leap to conclusions.”

Bilbo leaned forward, a feverish glint in his eyes. “Maybe not,” he said. “Thorin and Thranduil do hate each other, and—well, there’s not really a ‘but’ in that sentence. _But_. They are also two of the most powerful and experienced vampires we could hope to enlist, and now they’re tenuously existing under the same roof. And of course, we still have this.” Bilbo reached into the inner pocket of his coat, and pulled out a syringe. It was small—so small Bard almost laughed, if the sound didn’t wither in his throat. It occurred to Bard that he was seeing for the first time the root of all this hardship.

“Thranduil didn’t seem optimistic about our chances,” Bard said dryly.

“Which is why you need to help convince him.” Bilbo tucked the syringe back into his pocket and folded his hands on the table before him. “In many ways, what happens next will be up to you alone, Bard. I cannot convince Thranduil to work with us, and God knows Thorin can’t. You’re the only one who can sway his opinion. And if you can do that—if you can convince him to help us, to take a final stand rather than running and dying on our separate corners of the earth, then we might just stand a chance.”

“And what makes this chance any different than the one which eventually burned my house down?” Bard shot back.

Bilbo looked away. “I am sorry for that. We miscalculated.”

“Your miscalculation ruined my life. My _children’s_ lives.” There was no venom behind Bard’s words. He couldn’t muster it. And yet, as foolish as it seemed to face down the evil that had defeated them so soundly in the past, what other choice did they have? They could run. But they couldn’t run forever.

At once, Bard stood, his chair scraping back with a groan against the wood. “I need time to think about this. Am I allowed to go outside, or am I confined to quarters?”

Bilbo’s mouth twisted into a wry, humorless smile. “As long as it’s daylight, you can go where you like. Just stay away from dark places. Hard to say whether we’re truly safe here.”

“I don’t think it’s hard to say at all,” Bard replied. He strode through the door before Bilbo could reply. 

For the first time, Bard saw the landscape they had been deposited into under full sunlight. For a moment he stood on the porch of the cabin, blinking against the brightness of it—then he was off, striding through the woods of scraggly birch trees, following the level ground before it tapered off in a hill. The air smelled of frost and dirt, clean nature smells that lifted the pall from Bard’s mind. He followed the land, not thinking of anything in particular, hoping his feet would guide him to the answers he needed.

He found himself at a gap in the trees instead, the ground sloping sharply a few feet away. He stared down into the valley, at the flat, blue surface of the lake nestled within. It stretched out, narrow and skinny, trailing a river like a scraggly tail. It seemed this mountain was the only one in the area. The rest of the land devolved into gentle hills that rolled like sleep up to the horizon. Nestled in between them at the foot of the mountain was a lake, shimmering silver, fed by a thin river that twisted up around the slope.

Bard stared at it for a long time, letting himself be empty. He was so very tired. How many more nights would he have to sleep? Should he be counting his life in hours? Bilbo seemed to think they had a chance at survival. And yet if survival meant becoming like him, so numb and callous to the death Thorin left in his wake, Bard wasn’t sure that surviving was the best option.  

A shadow passed over the sun. Bard watched it come, a darkness that rushed over landscape like a drop of ink spreading through water. When it reached him, he began to shiver. It was cold. It was more than that.

He turned and headed back for the cabin. When he passed by the truck, something made him stop—he found himself opening it, staring at the bags of provisions with the vague intent of organizing them. He’d bring some food in for the kids, he decided, and their toothbrushes and a change of clothes. He had just started to shift the bags around and gather what he needed when he saw it—the familiar point of polished wood, hidden under the floor mat. Right where he had left it, of course, though he had not remembered until now. Almost reverently, he flipped the mat back. Underneath it was the bow, placed there so many nights ago after target practice at the garage. The quiver was under the back seat, he remembered, full of his grandfather’s arrows. He picked the unstrung bow up.

It was a foolish thing, really. A fool’s hope to think it would do any good. But he was a fool, after all, and he’d take a little hope wherever it came.

Bilbo was gone by the time Bard made it back through the door, supplies and bow in hand. He headed straight for the ladder into the cellars. He felt as if he were made of wet clay, already falling apart. He hadn’t thought, until then, about where he would sleep. The stone floor in his children’s room was an option. He could keep an eye on them while they slept, and be half-dead come nightfall when he would most need his wits about him. Some good he would be to them then. He paused in the hallway with his heart beating oddly fast. He pulled the curtain back to watch his children sleeping, their breaths rising and falling so delicately under the blankets. Then he turned to the other door.

The bed where Thranduil stretched out as still as death was easily large enough for the two of them. Bard remembered Bilbo’s words as he paused in the doorway. He wondered if something was pulling him, even now. Right now, all he felt was exhaustion.

He settled down on the other end of the mattress, as far from Thranduil’s sleeping form as possible. A thin blanket had been thrown over the bed—Bard pulled it over himself. The bed felt as cold as if it were completely empty. Rather than rolling over and closing his eyes, Bard found himself staring at Thranduil’s face. He rarely saw Thranduil during the daytime, when the heavy stupor came over him. His face looked softer. More human?

On a strange impulse, Bard reached out to lay the back of his hand against Thranduil’s cheek. His skin felt cool, utterly still; no pulse, no flicker of life. No, not human. Not even close. And yet Bard’s hand lingered there, simply touching, until Thranduil’s eyes opened.

Bard felt his heart throb in his chest, like a sudden rush of something hitting his bloodstream. By the time Thranduil’s eyes had focused on him, he had already pulled his hand away.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said, too quickly. “I didn’t think you could wake.”

“Not usually,” Thranduil said, and his words were slow and thick as honey. The softness in his sleeping features was still there, in his face and his voice. “I felt you near.”

Bard felt something twisting in his stomach. Whatever he might have said to that was unthinkable. Thranduil was watching his face, waiting for an explanation for being woken. “What’s going to happen tonight?” Bard asked.

Thranduil shut his eyes. For a moment Bard thought he was falling back into sleep, until he spoke. “We hear the Durins out. And then, in all likelihood, we leave.”

“Is there an alternative?”

Thranduil’s eyes cracked open once more. “You would have us stay? Fight at the sides of those who did this to you?”

“I would survive this.” Bard thought of Bilbo, of what came after survival. His own words soured in his mouth.

Thranduil sighed. “I admire your optimism.”

Bard couldn’t help but smile bitterly at the tone of Thranduil’s voice. “I was thinking about what you said, before. About my other options.”

“Your life is not a bargaining chip to me. I won’t change my mind.”

“I know. I’m not asking you to.” Bard sat quietly. Thranduil merely waited, half-asleep perhaps, or just patient. “I want to ask you to protect them.”

“Bard—”

“Just listen to me. If it comes down to you saving me, or one of the kids, you choose them, okay?” Thranduil turned his head away. Bard almost reached out to touch his cheek, to turn his face back. He kept his hands by his side, clenched into fists. “I want you to swear to me.”

“You know I can’t do that.” Thranduil’s voice was dull.

“You can, and you will,” Bard said firmly. “I think you already know that. Because if anything happens to my children, I’ll be as good as dead. So if you want to protect me, you protect _them_ first.”

After a moment Thranduil turned back to look at him. Bard felt his eyes traveling through the darkness, from his face to his white-knuckled hands. For a moment he thought Thranduil would reach out to him. There was nothing more than a short stretch of blankets between them. If Thranduil asked for something in exchange, Bard was not sure that he would deny it. And yet Thranduil did not move, did not close the distance.

“Very well,” he said. “I swear it.”

By the time Bard had managed to overcome his surprise, Thranduil had already rolled over and moved to the edge of the bed, showing Bard nothing more than the wide space of his shoulders, the way his hair laid on the pillows. Bard sat still for what felt like a long time, until all his words of gratitude died silently in his throat. Bard owed Thranduil nothing, of course. He willed himself to be feel vindictive. _This is the creature that destroyed you. You hate him._ He repeated it as a refrain as he turned over himself, edging as far away as the edge of the mattress would allow him. The words echoed hollowly in his mind, and found no purchase. He wanted to glance over, perhaps see Thranduil’s face in sleep one last time—but that was one indulgence too many.

He closed his eyes. Yet for all the time Bard had spent on the ragged edge of exhaustion, sleep was slow to come. He lay in the dark for a long time, Thranduil a silent weight at his back. There was no sound of breathing but his own. Bard lay still, until the pull of sleep was stronger than the pull of turning around, of opening his mouth, of reaching out into the dark.


	25. Chapter 25

Sigrid woke up to the cold. It was a presence in the bed with her, wrapped closer and tighter than the blankets around her body. She could hear her sister's breathing not far away, the soft wisps of it in the still air. Sigrid stretched over the chilly sheets between them until she found Tilda's hand. It was warm and slack with sleep. Safe. For a little while.

She opened her eyes and sat up slowly. In the other bed Bain was lying quietly, but when Sigrid swung her legs out of bed he opened his eyes to look at her. She almost asked him if he had slept well. Old habits.

"Where's Da?" she whispered.

Bain sat up in bed as well. "Upstairs. Talking to _them_."

Sigrid glanced at the ceiling. The chilly air suddenly felt much colder. She couldn’t help feeling like her father was consorting with the enemy. He claimed to know who the "real" enemy was, but then what were the things in this house if not evil?

Bain watched her with a joyless smile. "You're thinking of going up there, aren't you? I already tried.” He nodded towards the doorway. Sigrid followed his gaze. At first she saw nothing but the darkness beyond the open door; then the shadows tilted. Sigrid stiffened. A tall presence lingered just out of the light. She could just make out the familiar spill of red hair, hungry eyes.

Sigrid turned back to her brother, reaching up to rub the prickle off the back of her neck. "She won't hurt us.”

"I know. But she wouldn't let me leave, either."

"Are we prisoners here?"

"Might as well be."

Sigrid glanced down at Tilda—still sleeping. She turned back to her brother. "I'm going to go talk to our friend by the door. If I can get up to Da, I need you to wait here with Tilda."

Bain's mouth tightened. "I want to go up there with you!"

"Trust me, I want you there. But you know Tilda’s too young to join us, and we can't leave her here alone. I need you to do this for me."

Bain looked away. She knew she was asking more of her brother than just waiting down here in the dark and the silence. She was asking him to keep being helpless, to wait quietly while others decided his fate. It would have been harder to face the monsters upstairs. Sigrid reached out to squeeze his shoulder. "Can I count on you?"

Bain was his father's son. He swallowed and nodded stiffly, and Sigrid carefully slid out of bed.

Eyes watched her from the shadows past the doorframe, gleaming catlike in the darkness. Sigrid stepped up to them without faltering. As she stopped a few paces away, she could just see the suggestion of a cruel, smiling mouth.

"I'm going up there," Sigrid told Tauriel.

They eyes stared, unblinking. Sigrid was sure that her voice had not shaken; still, she supposed that Tauriel could smell her fear. She looked into Sigrid as if her skin were made of glass, all her inner workings revealed to a curious eye and careless hand. "I beg to differ."

"My father's up there."

"He's the one who asked me to keep you here."

Pure, sudden rage boiled up from the pit of Sigrid's stomach; as her faced heated, the smile on Tauriel's lips grew wider. Of course she found Sigrid's anger amusing, especially when it was directed at her own father. This was all just a game to her. Sigrid swallowed the fury as best she could, squaring her shoulders. "What are they doing up there?"

Tauriel leaned back on the doorpost, her arms crossed over her chest. "They're preparing for the meeting."

"What meeting?"

"That's none of your concern."

"Well, I _am_ concerned." Sigrid started to step past Tauriel; a hand laid across her chest stopped her short, as immovable as an iron bar. At the woman’s touch, Sigrid felt a cold prickle pass over her skin. A sensation that she had touched something fulsome and poisonous, already seeping into her blood. She stepped away on instinct. If it was down to a test of strength, Sigrid would certainly lose.

She took a steadying breath. Time for a different method.

"Well then," Sigrid said levelly. "Everyone else is up there discussing options, and you're here on babysitting duty?"

The irritation that passed over Tauriel's face was as brief and terrible as a lightning strike, gone so quickly Sigrid almost missed it. Almost, but not quite.

"You had best think carefully about how you address me," Tauriel said in silky tones. "I am not so patient as my sire."

"And what will you do?" Sigrid demanded. She forced her lips into a cool smile. "Thranduil told you not to hurt any of us."

It was a gamble, but Sigrid liked her odds. Her father would never have left them alone with Tauriel without a guarantee of their safety. And sure enough, this time when Tauriel's expression soured she did not collect herself so easily.

"You are not making me more likely to let you pass, _little girl_."

"I'm not asking you to let me go. I'm saying you should come with me."

Tauriel blinked. Sigrid realized, with a thrill, that she had actually caught her off guard. "Bain will watch over Tilda," she continued quickly, "and if you're with me..." Sigrid grinned. "You’re still technically looking after me, aren't you?"

Tauriel looked dubious; words alone wouldn’t be enough. Sigrid stepped forward. She knew the other woman would be very much aware of her presence, her heat, her blood. If it clouded her judgement, Sigrid would push that advantage for all it was worth. "You don't want to be stuck down here waiting for others to make decisions for you any more than I do," she said softly. "Let's go upstairs."

Tauriel’s silence stretched for so long that Sigrid thought it was a refusal. But then she chuckled and shook her head, her fingers tapping on the wood of the door. "You are different than I thought you would be.”

"And what did you think I would be?"

"Prey." Tauriel pushed herself off the door's threshold and cast one final glance into the room. "Let's go. The meeting will begin any moment."

She slipped into the dark hallway without another word, and Sigrid followed.

 

* * *

 

Walking into the main room of the cabin was like stepping into a cave full of bats. When Sigrid and Tauriel crossed the threshold they were immediately pinned with dozens of gleaming eyes. Half of the large room was dedicated to a kitchen, and the other to a living space cluttered with chairs and a sagging couch—every inch of it was packed. People leaned on the counters and stood against the walls, piling onto the furniture until it seemed ready to break. The strangest thing of all was the quiet, the sense of emptiness; for all the people she could see in the room and the rustle of their low conversations, her instincts told her it was empty. Except, of course, for the other humans in the room.

From the second she stepped in she’d met her father’s gaze. He had been standing near the back of the room talking to Thranduil in a low voice, but as soon as he saw her his jaw went tight. The thrill of defiance made Sigrid’s heart beat faster. She’d climbed out of the box he’d tried to put her in, out of sight and mind. Now he _couldn’t_ ignore her.

Sigrid waited as he made his way to her, exasperation written into every line and shadow on his face. He spoke to Tauriel first. “I told you to keep them out of this.”

Tauriel shrugged. “She made me.”

“I highly doubt that anyone is capable of _making_ you do anything, let alone a teenage girl—“

“Da,” Sigrid snapped. “I convinced her, okay?”

At once Bard’s eyes narrowed. "Where are Bain and Tilda?"

"Downstairs," Sigrid said. "I told them to wait for me."

"Then let's not keep them waiting." He reached out to take her arm and begin pulling her back towards the door.

She jerked away. "I'm staying, Da."

Bard glanced around at the interested eyes that had settled on them once more. "Come," he said, pulling her towards the door again. "Let's talk in the hallway."

Reluctantly, she followed him into the hall, listening to the door clicked shut behind them. From one of the back rooms, Sigrid could hear the muffled sound of some massive creature snoring—Beorn had yet to awaken.

Bard turned to her, dragging fingers through his hair with a ragged sigh. "Sig, what are you trying to do?"

"I’m trying to help,” Sigrid said. “If this meeting is to decide what happens to all of us, don’t you think that _all_ of us should have a say?"

"You're only children—"

"We're more than that now," Sigrid snapped. "We have to be."

Bard looked away. "That's exactly what I’m trying so hard to prevent."

"You can't prevent what’s already happened.”

Whatever her father had been about to say stopped dead in his mouth. He blinked—his eyes stayed closed for just a second too long, and that was the only way Sigrid knew how deeply she’d hurt him with those few words alone. She bit back the apology that sprung to her lips. She couldn’t back down. Not now.

“You do realize that room is full of monsters? Murderers?” Bard said at last. “Can you blame me for trying to keep you away from all of that?"

Sigrid threw her hands up. “Keeping us in the dark doesn’t make us any safer, Da. It just makes it easier for the things _in_ the dark to get us _.”_

“And what if they’re going to get us either way?” Bard demanded. There was fire in his eyes now, an anger Sigrid hadn’t seen in a long time. “What if all we get to choose now is how it happens? Is that a choice that you want to face? That you want _Tilda_ to face?”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth she saw him go slightly paler. He’d said more than he meant to. Sigrid dug her nails into her palms and refused to let him see that he’d shaken her. “Is that what this meeting is going to decide?” she said.

Bard swayed on his feet, as if fighting the urge to start pacing. “In a manner of speaking. Smaug is closing in on us here. We need to make a choice, before we’re out of options: whether we stay, or whether we run.”

Sigrid paused. When laid out as simply as that, their situation sounded much worse than she might have realized. "And what do you think we should do?"

Her father sighed. "We have to keep running, Sigrid. If we stand our ground we might have a chance, but it’s a small chance , at a high cost. People will die. Maybe all of us. And I can't risk that."

"So we'd just keep moving? Like we have been, since the house?"

"Well, no. We'd be able to do things differently. Get an RV, maybe, I don't know…"

"For how long?"

Bard paused, weighing his words. With a pang Sigrid realized that he was debating whether to lie to her. But then he shook his head and grimaced, as if swallowing a bitter pill. "I don't know what to tell you, Sig. I don't want to scare you. But I don't think this is something that's ever going to go away. Once we start running, I don't know when we could stop."

Sigrid leaned back against the wall, staring at the dark wooden boards across from her. She tried to imagine the past few days, the strange motel rooms, the night scrolling past the car window, the world reduced to two beached-out patches in the headlights, the daylight so bright it was almost unfamiliar. "And Thranduil would be there."

Slowly, Bard nodded.

She kept her voice level. “I’m surprised that he hasn’t convinced you to stay. Running doesn’t seem like his style.”

“Running was _his_ suggestion in the first place.” Seeing the surprise on Sigrid’s face, her father shrugged. “He knows better than anyone why this is a fight we can’t win.”

“Do you believe that too?” Sigrid demanded. “Or is that just what Thranduil thinks? Of course he wouldn’t think we could win. Why should he see you as anything more than how you see me, or Tilda and Bain: a burden? A weak spot?”

“I don’t—”

“Yes, you do.” He didn’t argue with her a second time, and so Sigrid pushed on. “I know we’re strong, Da— _all_ of us. Stronger than they realize.” She stared down at her feet, shoeless and grey-socked and strangely vulnerable. The realization came to her whether she wanted it or not. "We have to fight."

Bard hesitated. "Sigrid…”

"No, please listen.” Sigrid ran a hand through her hair. “I don't want to live like that, okay? I want a normal life, a school, a job—how can I have any of that, if we could never stop running? We'd just be stuck the way we are, nothing ever changing except all of us getting older and slower until finally he catches us anyways."

Bard looked as if he were about to argue, but then his lips tightened. "There could be a lot of years in between, Sig. A lot of good years."

Slowly, she shook her head. "No," she said. "I don't want to be like _them_ , stuck in one way forever. I want a life, Da. And I think, if you cared to ask them, Bain and Tilda would say the same.” Bard didn’t respond. She took a step closer. “You know you can’t keep us safe anymore. It’s too late for that.”

Bard threw his hands up with a sharp, pained laugh. "You can’t expect me to just accept that! I'm your father, it's _all_ I'm supposed to do, and I’m not going to back down now!”

The familiar pit of anger flared to life in Sigrid’s stomach. The same dull fury that had smoldered away all those months when her father had lied and lied because he thought it was best for everyone. Unbidden, Thorin’s words from the night before leapt into her mind. _From the looks of that one’s complexion you’ve been feeding well._ They gave her fury form, direction. She opened her mouth before she could stop herself.

"And is what you're doing with Thranduil supposed to protect us?” she said, her voice deadly quiet. “Letting him _drink your blood_?"

The moment the words slipped out Sigrid regretted them. She saw her father jolt as if she'd struck him before he turned his back to her, and yet she couldn’t stop. “You said he was eating _animals,_ Da. How could you let him do that to you?”

She could see nothing of his expression; just the defensive hunch of his shoulders, slumped and vulnerable. “I’m doing what I have to,” he whispered. “And if it keeps us all alive, it’s worth it. No question.”

Sigrid’s stomach twisted, but she clamped her jaw shut. She was too angry to offer any comfort. She brushed past her father and opened the door back to the central room of the cabin without another word. He didn’t follow.

 

* * *

 

She walked into a barrage of noise from the moment she opened the door. In the time she’d been in the hallway, Thorin had returned. He stood in the center of the room with Fili and Kili at his sides, all three of them shouting simultaneously into Thranduil and Tauriel’s faces. All around them the crowd that had gathered was either watching or arguing in turn, a few people halfheartedly trying to pull Fili or Kili back—none laid a hand on Thorin. Kili and Tauriel appeared to be arguing with each other as much as they were trying to calm down their respective leaders.

“If you wish to run with your tail between your legs it’s no concern of mine,” Thorin shouted. “Go, then, and trouble us no longer!”

“Not until you give me what is owed,” Thranduil said. His voice was just as loud as Thorin’s, but much colder.

“I won’t provide valuable resources that _we_ need just so you can scuttle back into a different hole!”

“You have the nerve to awaken Smaug and set him on a rampage without admitting your own guilt? I suppose I should not be surprised.”

“Better to take action than cower uselessly as Smaug destroys your own coven!”

Sigrid was buffeted through the chaos of the crowd, her voice lost among the noise. She saw Bilbo trying to elbow into Thorin’s space, shouting for everyone to calm down with no effect. She watched the room unravel with dawning horror. If this was everyone trying to work together, they were surely dead already.

“You know nothing of it,” Thranduil hissed, his face inches from Thorin’s. “You’re a fool, a _child_ , and your mistakes have already cost many their existence. I won’t have your delusions cost me and mine theirs.”

“I will give you no weapons, no transport, no reparations,” Thorin said. “We owe you _nothing_.”

Sigrid saw Thranduil’s hand go to his stake.

At once a roar split the air, so deafening that it settled into her bones. All the shouts cut off at once as a massive figure shouldered past the doorway leading from the hall and the back rooms. Beorn stood at his full height, glowering at everyone in turn. Sigrid was surprised to see her father standing at his side, his face harder than she’d left it. The guilt, the grief, the remorse on his face—all of that was gone. His expression had hardened.

“That’s better,” Beorn said. Dark eyes gleamed under his thick black brows, and they moved from face to face around the room. “We're all licking wounds here. Under this roof, you'll do so in peace.” His hand settled on Bard’s shoulder. “First, this one has something to say.”

When Bard stepped forward, all eyes were on him. The crowd opened up enough for him to pass, stepping through them and meeting their eyes as he made his way to the center of the room where Thorin and Thranduil stood.

“I’ll be honest,” Bard said quietly. “The thought of letting all of you tear each other apart is pretty tempting from where I’m standing. But if we do that—if we fight amongst ourselves—then Smaug has already killed us. We need to understand the whole story,” he said, looking from Thranduil to Thorin to Bilbo. “From all sides.  And once we’ve heard it, maybe we can come to some kind of agreement that won’t end with all of us dead.”

Bilbo cleared his throat. "Ahm. Well. On that matter, I may have some light to shed." Sigrid eyed the short, bespectacled man who had greeted them the night before. His eyes darted around from face to face, mouth set in a humorless smile. He seemed unaccustomed to speeches and command, but there was a quiet strength to him that Sigrid liked very much.

"You’re right to say that whatever decision we all make, it will be important to have the facts," he said. "There’s much your people don’t know."

"Get on with it, then," Thorin said with a wave of his hand. "Let's ensure we're all up to speed."

"Right," Bilbo said with a businesslike nod. "Well, I suppose we'd best go back to the beginning. It all started—"

"The short version, Mr. Burglar, if you don't mind," a grey-haired woman with spectacles said mildly.

Bilbo tilted his head in acquiescence. "I'm doing my best, aren't I? I think they should know the full of it. As I was saying: we made our first attempt against Smaug in the autumn of last year. We got wind of his lair; we had reason to believe our advantage was worth pressing."

"And what advantage was that?" Bard said.

Bilbo glanced at Thorin, who nodded brusquely. Slipping his fingers into his breast pocket, Bilbo withdrew a small glass vial with a clear liquid inside.

"This," he said. "The one weak point in Smaug's armor, so to speak. I discovered it myself.”

For once, no one seemed eager to interrupt—even Thorin’s people, who must have known this already, were quiet. Bilbo nodded approvingly before he continued. “The most dangerous thing about Smaug, as I'm sure most of us know, is the power he holds over all of his kind. Smaug is the first. The father of all vampires. Any sire has great influence over the fledglings they create, and in a way Smaug has sired every vampire in existence. The only creatures fast and powerful enough to challenge him are the same that he can undermine with a thought." Bilbo held up the serum. "Until now."

"What does it do?" Thranduil said. His tone was bored, but his eyes did not waver from the vial in Bilbo’s hand.

Bilbo shot him an irritated look. "Yes, I was getting to that. It disrupts Smaug's connection to all of his fledglings. Present company included."

"We're not Smaug's fledglings," Tauriel said. "He has no claim over us."

"Doesn’t he?” Bilbo said. His voice grew excited. “And yet during the raid, you said yourself that you felt him in your mind. Analyzing your thoughts, anticipating your actions. I imagine that if he’d felt the need, he could have done much worse. How could any but your own sire do such a thing? And how can we hope to get past his physical defenses if we cannot protect ourselves from our own minds?”

Tauriel fell silent, but her shoulders were tense with unease.

"How did you come to have this?" Thranduil demanded.

"I designed it," Bilbo replied. Thranduil scoffed in disbelief, and Bilbo raised an eyebrow. “Did you think that a little bird told me about it? I’m a hematologist. I studied for years to create it.”

“Forgive me if I’m not eager to wager my existence against a vial of spit,” Thranduil said.

“This is not spit!” Bilbo cried. “It is an incredibly sophisticated chemical compound that effects the changes in brain physiology brought on by the contaminant introduced by the bite, and the pheromone compounds which subsequently appear in the blood. I can send you my lab report, if you wish. Years of research might be a bit of a slog for the layman."

"Get on with it, Bilbo," Thorin said tiredly.

Bilbo sighed. "Yes, yes. Can you blame me for putting this part off?” He took off his glasses and cleaned them on his shirt, blinking rapidly. “You see, the serum only works if it gets into Smaug’s blood. But if any of you tried to inject him with it, he’d be able to sense you and your intentions before you got close enough for him to rip your head off. We knew that, even when we made our first assault against his lair. But a human—well, he would surely know I was there, but what possible threat could I be? Our minds are invisible to him," Bilbo said, looking from Bard to Sigrid in turn with a grim smile. “All he knows of us is our meat.”

“Then why didn’t it work the first time?” Thranduil asked.

Bilbo shook his head. “I’m getting to that. I went into his lair alone, with the serum in my pocket; Smaug sleeps unguarded, in a nest of bones from his previous victims, all very much the kind of thing you’d expect. He has no need of any to watch over him—too proud, or simply accustomed to the isolation, I can’t say. Either way, there was no one to stop me from entering his lair. And by the time I made my way down those winding underground passages, he was waiting for me."

The small man's eyes took on a glazed quality. His fingers tapped a restless, unconscious rhythm on the table.

"I never even saw him. He was toying with me, I know, letting me scurry away like a rat. But before he let me go, he… spoke to me. Told me something I frankly wish I hadn't heard."

"Enough theatrics,” Tauriel grumbled. Bilbo shot her a despairing look, but the glaze of old, sour fear had lifted from his eyes.

"He said the time had come for him to sire a new vampire himself," Bilbo said. "And, well. After being the one to wake him up, I seem to be the candidate."

Thranduil laughed, but there was no humor in it. "Smaug has not personally sired a new vampire in almost a thousand years."

"Precisely. He’s certainly waited long enough, don't you think?" Bilbo's smile was tight. "It makes sense in its own sort of way. This time, he plans to destroy all those who have ever opposed him. And in their place—rising from their very ashes, in fact—will come a new, perfect creature, a symbol of his purified bloodline."

Tauriel snorted. Her eyes took Bilbo in like a particularly meaty bug splattered on a windshield. Sigrid couldn’t blame her disbelief. Curly-haired, bespectacled, and a little chubby, she couldn’t picture Bilbo as the next great master-vampire either. "Why would he choose you?" Tauriel demanded.

"I'm not thrilled about it, believe me," Bilbo said.

"Perhaps it is your medical expertise he wants to exploit," Thranduil mused. He was staring at Bilbo with an almost thoughtful expression now.  "Creating a serum capable of weakening Smaug is no small task."

"That can't be it, and that's just the thing," Bilbo said. "Smaug doesn't know about the serum. He couldn't sense it from me, and he had no time in the coming assault to squeeze it from any of our minds.”

"And what about in your second attempt?" Bard said sharply. “The one that led him to me?”

Sigrid saw Tauriel stiffen, but Bilbo shook his head. "It's hard to say. But I don't believe Smaug knows what we have against him. Likely he only suspects we have some secret weapon, but he would probably underestimate its effectiveness."

" _Likely, suspects, probably_ ," Thranduil echoed. "You're setting our lives atop some very delicate assumptions, Doctor."

“Do you have a better solution?” Bilbo demanded. “Smaug is _accomplished_ at hunting down the vermin that try to escape him. What he won’t see coming is defiance. We know that he plans to bite me. We know that the serum works.”

“Even if he gets close enough to bite you, you won’t be able to move fast enough,” Bard said. “I’ve seen how fast they move.”

“I won’t have to move at all,” Bilbo said quietly. “I don’t plan on injecting Smaug—you’re right that it would be futile. I plan on injecting _myself_. When he feeds on me, the serum in my blood will flow into him. After that, it will be up to all of you.” Bilbo’s smile was thin and forced. “I hope that you’ll be quick about it.”

Sigrid’s stomach went cold. Bilbo was going to willingly let a monster bite him, drink from him, maybe even kill him? Unwillingly her eyes darted to her father. His face was unreadable.

Bard turned to Thranduil, and raised an eyebrow. “Well? Will it work?”

“It’s a fool’s errand,” Thranduil said stiffly, but he didn’t sound convinced of his own words.

Thorin’s eyes flashed, but he did not turn on Thranduil. Instead he faced the people watching from all over the room, regarding them one by one. “A fool’s errand it may be,” he said. “But better a fool’s hope than a coward’s fear.”

"How nice for you to have the luxury of choosing a heroic stand," Thranduil said. He’d remained utterly unmoved by Thorin’s speech. "We were given no choice in the matter, after you led Smaug to our door."

"The choice is yours this time," Thorin said. "Flight or fight. But I'd wager a pretty penny I know what you'll choose."

"Should I throw away my life, and the lives of my coven, just to prove you wrong?" Thranduil demanded. "You cannot hope that this little human's creation will make a single difference to Smaug. If we run, we buy ourselves a hundred tiny chances at life."

"What life? Smaug will never let you rest. What of your humans?" Thorin gestured at Bard, and then Sigrid. She felt her heart beat faster. "They are a liability to you. Will you keep them? Or eat them quickly for strength, and save your own skin? Interesting to see which side of your nature would win out: sentimentality or cowardice."

Thranduil bristled. "If you think—"

"Quiet, both of you." Bard’s voice cut through the growing din of the room like a hot knife. He took another step forward—not to stand beside Thranduil, but a short ways apart from him. He, Thorin, and Thranduil all faced each other,  three points on a triangle, the power shifting between them. There were shadows under Bard's eyes, lines that hadn't been there a month before; he looked tired, beat down, but not at all weak.

"My family has nothing to do with this," he said. He met Sigrid's eye briefly before looking away, though whether it was guilt or shame that flashed over his face Sigrid couldn't be wholly certain. "Smaug is only a name to me. By all rights, we shouldn't be here at all. But we _are_. And there's no turning back for us now any more than there is for any of you.” He raised his chin and looked into Thranduil’s eyes last of all.

"Maybe a life on the run until Smaug goes to sleep again is an option for your kind, but for my family will be dead long before he begins tire of hunting us. We can’t run. And that leaves only one other option.”

"Bard," Thranduil said. A note of warning was in his voice. "Think about what you're saying."

"I've thought about it," Bard said. His eyes flashed to Sigrid’s and then met Thranduil’s without flinching. "I think we should fight."

Thranduil stepped closer and lowered his voice. "If we stay here, you could be dooming your family to death. If we leave this place and don't look back, at least we have a chance—"

"A chance at what?" Bard said. "What will my family have, when all’s said and done? I ask for _more_ , Thranduil. More, or nothing." He turned to Thorin. “My family and I will fight with you.”

All eyes turned to Thranduil. His face was utterly still. “You’re a fool,” Thranduil said softly. “A fool, to think such trifles will stop him.” He did not meet Bard’s gaze. Instead he turned away, a flash of old pain distorting his features.

“You over estimate him,” Thorin said coldly. “He is merely one of us. Even if he was the first.”

“He is not merely anything,” Thranduil snapped. "I speak from experience, not fear. Centuries ago I thought to stand against him. Even then, with all the strength we could muster, Smaug butchered us like humans. I spent all the long years since that day running. After all this time, _I_ have endured."

"Thranduil." This time it was Tauriel who spoke, and Sigrid could see that her eyes were bright. "If it’s a choice between living for centuries passing grey and featureless and afraid, or the taste of fresh blood on my tongue and the fire of killing in my veins—I know what I would choose. If we have  chance to shape the world as we see fit, is that not worth fighting for?"

Thranduil turned away. Sigrid saw the bitter cast of his mouth. "I have no duty to the world."

"Perhaps not. But you have to live in it, the same as we do." Tauriel turned to Thorin. "I too say we fight."

"And we will have you," Thorin said to Tauriel, though there was a note of reservation in his voice.

"All of you," Bilbo added with a nod towards Bard.

To the rest of the party present, Thorin raised his eyes. He took them in, one by one, sparing even Sigrid a searching look. "Well, we're a motley crew if I've ever seen one," he said with a quiet laugh. "Few here are warriors—but killing is in our nature. And we will turn that gift Smaug has given us against him, and tear his heart out with it!"

A cry went up, and Sigrid found herself jostled to the back of the room, forgotten in the chaos. She heard Thorin's voice over the fray, saying, "Kili, Fili, Dwalin, you three take scouting duty. The second one of Smaug's creatures comes crawling onto our land, I want them up on a pike to meet the sunlight."

With loud voices and laughter, the room quickly cleared out. Soon the rest of the Durins had hurried off to their preparations, leaving an empty silence in their wake. Thranduil raised his eyes to Bard's one last time; Sigrid did not know what passed between them, but she saw Bard look away first. Then Thranduil left, moving not for the front door but back towards the underground lair, slipping down the hallway and out of sight.

Tauriel sized Bard up with a raised eyebrow. "We may have just agreed to die together.”

"I can tell you have a gift for seeing the sunny side of things," Bard replied mildly. With a snort, Tauriel turned to the front door and slipped outside. Just before she left, she shot Sigrid a wink.

"Not all that funny, is it? All that about being predators." Bilbo's voice took Sigrid by surprise—the man had slipped to the back of the room, quiet in all the hubbub. Now it was only the three of them.

"No, not really," Bard said. 

"They forget that to become a vampire, they must leave behind as much behind as they gain,” Bilbo continued aimlessly. “You _aren't_ what you eat, in this case."

"And what is that?" Bard asked.

Bilbo laughed. "What does it mean to be human? Now that’s a good question! We’re easier to kill, that’s certainly true. But I have a feeling that we have our own roles to play." He smiled at Sigrid. "We'll need every pair of hands we can get."

"I suppose we will," Bard said quietly, but his eyes were staring at something far away, cast down to the floorboards. When he spoke his voice was quiet, leaning closer to Bilbo so that Sigrid almost didn’t hear. "Do you really think he'll leave?"

Bilbo tilted his head. "Hard to say. I’d bet that whatever he does is entirely up to you."

Bard looked away for a moment, his thoughts his own. At last he turned to Sigrid with a weak smile. "I suppose we ought to go talk to your brother and sister."

Sigrid followed him back into the basement. The sense of command had fallen off of him again—he was just her father once more, looking worn-out and sad like he did after working late at the garage, on those nights when they'd settle in for a movie and he'd fall asleep before the opening credits were over. Sigrid felt a sharp pinch in the corners of her eyes, but blinked the tears away.

She heard Bain's voice as they started down the hallway, and fear tensed Sigrid's fingers into a fist—but then she heard Tilda laugh, and Bain's voice raising again, and when she stepped around the corner the two of them were sitting on the bed with Bain gesturing wildly and Tilda leaning forward, hanging on his every word.

"And then, they knocked the TI-1000 right off the platform, and it landed—"

"The lava!" Tilda cried.

"The _molten metal_ , but yes! Right in the big vat of piping hot steel! And Sarah Conner watched as it tried to change shapes, over and over, but it melted right down into nothing—"

Tilda laughed again. Bain looked up as Bard settled down on the bed beside Tilda and pulled her into a hug. "Terminator 2, huh?"

"Da!" Tilda cried, twisting around to wrap her arms around his neck. "Can we watch it?"

Sigrid half expected him to tell her to wait until she was older. But with a smile Bard ran his hand over the back of Tilda's head. "Sure, sweetheart. We can watch the whole series."

Bain made a face. “Ugh, even Salvation?”

Bain met Sigrid's eyes as she sat down on the second bed. _Thanks,_ she mouthed to him. He nodded.

Bard gently pulled Tilda away until he could look into her eyes. "There's something I think we should talk about," their father said quietly, meeting each of their gazes in turn. "I know I've been keeping you kids in the dark. I thought I was doing what was best. But ignorance won't protect any of us, now."

"What's going to happen, Da?" Tilda asked.

Bard took a breath. "You all know that bad things are coming after us. You've seen them. I wish to God you hadn't, that you never had to know about any of this, but—" He shook his head. "That doesn't matter now. There's going to be a fight. A big fight. What's important is that all of us make it out alive. And to do that, you all need to take care of each other. Because—" He broke off, his voice sounding strange, before surging on anyways. "There’s a chance I might not be able to do it for you.”

Sigrid felt frozen, watching her father’s throat bob with the emotions he was trying to swallow. “No matter how it feels, no matter what anyone tells you, you—we—are _not_ helpless,” he continued. We can fight them. We _will_ fight them. And we'll _win_."

"How?" Bain asked quietly. "Surviving is one thing, but—they're so fast, so strong. We don’t stand a chance at beating them."

"Yes we do," Bard said. "I know that for a fact. I've killed their kind before."

Bain's eyes went round. "No way!"

"What happened, Da?" Tilda asked. Sigrid said nothing, but she was just as surprised as they were.

Bard sat back, a small smile on his lips. “Well," he began, as if Tilda was years younger and he was telling her a bedtime story, "there was this one vampire, one of Smaug's evil minions, hell-bent on killing me. He was almost nine feet tall, and ten thousand years old—"

"No way!" Bain cried. "That would be like—from the Ice Age!"

Bard grinned. He looked like the father Sigrid remembered, not just from before Thranduil but even longer ago—before their mother’s death took that man away from them. "That's right," he said. "I killed an evil vampire from the Ice Age. It all started at Dale's—no, don't look at me like that, I had gone there to track Thranduil down for information—and suddenly, a car alarm went off…"

As he told the story, Sigrid watched as all the fears and worries fell off of him and her siblings, one by one. They were laughing, relaxing, even with death closing in. She realized then that Bard was right—they could defend themselves. And for all of the trust he had lost, for all he had appeared to be under Thranduil's thumb, he could still fight for his own.

A prickle on the back of her neck drew her eyes back to the doorway. It was still dark, but just as before she recognized a presence insinuated amongst the shadows. This time it was a flash of straight blonde hair, and piercing blue eyes settled on her father's back as he continued the story. Thranduil turned to meet her gaze. She felt a pang shoot through her chest, but it wasn’t fear—it was stranger, sadder. Sigrid inched closer to the rest of her family on instinct, their own little raft of warmth and life, circled restlessly by the sharks.

"And then a hand reached out through the broken window of the car," Bard was saying, reaching out towards Tilda at the same time with fingers bent into claws. The story had become just like his other ones, tales of dragons and heroes and tricksters, tales where things always turned out for the best.

"Azog had me pinned to the car, his ugly twisted face just inches from mine," he said, leaning into Tilda's space to make her giggle and squirm in spite of the second-hand fear in her eyes. "I had the stake just over his heart, but he had some kind of armor; I couldn't push it in."

"Woah, Da," Bain murmured under his breath. His eyes were wide with awe as he stared at their father.

"And that was when, out of nowhere—wham!" Tilda jumped with a squeak. "Thranduil came up behind Azog and _shoved_ him forward—right onto the stake I was holding."

"That is _awesome_!" Bain cried. "Thranduil actually helped you?"

Bard looked away, a strange expression on his face. "He did," Bard said softly. "He saved my life then, even though he didn't have to. And after we'd made sure Azog could never come back, I helped Thranduil get to safety before the sun rose."

A knot of cold tied itself into Sigrid's stomach. "Why?" she asked, speaking up for the first time. _We could have been free of him_ , she wanted to say. _You could have just let him die._

Bard met her eyes for a moment, and then his gaze shifted past her. To the doorway, where Thranduil still stood, watching them all. "I knew he was our only chance of surviving this," Bard said quietly. "I couldn't have killed Azog alone. And if the time came again, I needed to know that even if I wasn't strong enough to do it alone, someone else could step in—could keep you three safe."

"And you really think he'll do that?" Once the question might have come out bitter and angry, but now Sigrid really wanted to know.

Bard wasn't looking at the doorway anymore. His eyes were only on her. "Yes," he said softly. "I do."

Sigrid looked down at her hands. She couldn’t deny the bone-deep belief written on his face.

Bard leaned down to kiss the top of Tilda’s head, squeezing his eyes shut as he did. He pulled Tilda into a tight one-armed hug, encircling Bain with his other. They sat like that for a while before Bard pulled back, clearing his throat with a lopsided smile. “Now, get some sleep, you three," he said. “Tomorrow there’ll be plenty to do.”

Sigrid watched as he rose from the bed and stepped out of the darkened doorway. There was no sign of Thranduil's presence, but she knew he was still near. Bain was helping Tilda get into bed; on a sudden impulse Sigrid rose and paused by the doorway, hearing her father's voice not far down the hall.

"…surprised you decided to tell them about Azog." That was Thranduil, the low curl of his voice carefully devoid of emotion.

"They deserve to know the truth now," Bard said. "As much as I can give them. I want them to know that we have a chance."

"False hope is dangerous."

"So is despair." A pause. "Are you leaving us, then? At the meeting you said you wouldn't stay."

"I said I did not _want_ to stay."

"And when have you ever done anything you don't want to do?"

"Since I met you, it would seem."

Another pause. Then, Bard laughed—short, and full of surprise. "So. You're staying?"

"It would seem that I have interests here to protect."

"…Thank you, Thranduil." There was warmth in her father’s voice, an earnestness she was almost embarrassed to overhear.

"Let us hope it will be enough,” Thranduil replied in a tone Sigrid couldn’t place.

Moments later she heard the sound of retreating footsteps, only one pair. She could imagine her father standing alone in the dark hallway, the silence stretching out and seeming to bear him further and further away. On some level, deep down, he trusted Thranduil. A monster. A killer. And yet—didn't he also have to be something more? If her father could willingly defend him, hadn't he seen something ultimately worth defending?

Perhaps they would never know. All they had was belief. She would trust in her father’s faith and hope it was enough for the both of them.

On quiet feet, she returned to bed.


	26. Chapter 26

Dawn was coming. Thranduil could feel it. The sky bruised purple in the east; the stars turned their backs one by one behind the branches of the trees. Thranduil rarely remained outside so close to daylight. And yet worse things lurked in the pit of the night, where once Thranduil had felt at home.

"Ten minutes to the last checkpoint," Tauriel said from behind him. They were both painfully aware of the timeframe. These early-morning patrol runs were harder on her, younger and more susceptible to the dawn as she was. But Smaug's army of fledglings would be even weaker, and so toeing this pre-dawn line was as safe as they could hope for. It had been almost a week since their mutual decision to remain at the cabin, with no sign yet of Smaug or any of his forces.

Tauriel steps flagged behind him. Leaves and branches crackled carelessly beneath her feet. He'd been the one to push for wider patrol routes, straying closer to dawn every morning. With the long hours of the night filled with little more but waiting, there were few complaints from even the weakest among them.

They reached the top of a rise and heard the sound of a creek running nearby. "This is it," Thranduil murmured. "Nothing. Not even a scent."

"Where are they?" Tauriel murmured. It wasn’t a question either of them could answer. Tauriel’s skin looked waxen, sagging off her bones. She didn't ask if they could return, but Thranduil knew she was at the end of her endurance.

"We head back," he said softly, and did not acknowledge the clear relief which spread over Tauriel's face.

The sky was a midnight blue while the east steadily greyed. They loped up the mountainside surrounding the cabin, ground they had come to know well on their patrols. By the time they reached the cabin even Thranduil’s skin was beginning to feel too tender, too tight.

Tauriel paused at the door when she realized Thranduil had stopped. She turned around with her eyes squinting against the coming light.

“Go in without me,” Thranduil said softly. “I’ll be alright for a moment more.”

She looked like she wanted to argue, but her skin was much more sensitive than his own. She slipped through the door, leaving him alone.

There wasn’t much time. He pulled out his phone, dialed, held it to his ear, and listened to the rings. It went on and on, barks of static without an answer. Thranduil was just about to hang up when the phone gave a click, and a familiar voice said, “Yes?”

Thranduil closed his eyes against the growing brightness. He hadn’t heard that voice in decades. “Legolas.”

Silence. Thranduil had expected that. “I got this number from Tauriel’s phone,” he continued. “I wouldn’t have contacted you if it wasn’t crucial.”

A dry laugh. “Of course.”

Memories of their last meeting rose to the surface of Thranduil’s mind. Time had made them uglier. He remembered the barn, Legolas standing in a shaft of moonlight, the smell of hay and blood. _This is what you’ve chosen?_ Thranduil had said. The cows’ bodies had begun to cool, but their hide was fragrant with musk and filth. Animal. Wrong. The smell coated Thranduil’s tongue enough to choke him. _You are not one of us. Not anymore._

Legolas had only stared at him. When he’d turned and walked away, Thranduil had made no effort to stop him. He hadn’t wanted to. That desire only came later, when it was too late to reach back through the memories of that night and seize Legolas’s shoulder before the moonlight obliterated him. Forgiveness did not come easy to Thranduil’s kind, and it came even harder to him.

“I do not want you to find us,” Thranduil said on the phone. “Do not try to follow our trail. Tauriel and I have made our choice, but it doesn’t have to be yours.”

“I would have thought you’d learned your lesson about trying to make my choices for me.”

A faint smile touched Thranduil’s lips. “I’m a slow study.” His skin began to prickle, a thousand needles rippling inside of it. “Don’t come,” he said more urgently. “If you ever decide to obey me again, let this be the time. Go find our allies. Warn them. Live, and let them live, and perhaps as the centuries pass, you can find hope again.”

Legolas did not respond, so long that Thranduil began to worry about being burned to death before Smaug’s forces had arrived. But then he heard Legolas sigh. “I will do as you ask,” he said. “But I still have hope, Thranduil. Even now.” The line went dead. Thranduil leapt to his feet and ran to the cabin door before the breaching sun could cook him alive.

He stumbled inside with his teeth bared against the pain. As soon as the door closed the darkness soothed it. In the cabin it was always night, the windows shuttered so tightly that Thranduil could remain upstairs at high noon. At the table, Bilbo and Beorn poured over the schematics of the cabin and its grounds by the light of a hissing propane lamp, their voices tense. Tauriel stood behind them, her expression heavy with thought and exhaustion.

“We can’t expect a siege,” Bilbo said. “Smaug might enjoy our terror, but the fledglings his lieutenants have created will only survive for a week or two—many have likely expired already, their half-life at an end. He will need to strike quickly if he is to use his full force.”

“He cannot enter this house while there are humans dwelling within,” Beorn rumbled.

Bilbo shoved his fingers into his hair and tugged on his scalp in irritation. “He won’t need an invitation if there’s no more house. We’re all familiar with his proclivity to fire.”

Thranduil drifted behind, idly picking up a sheet of paper detailing the fire-proofing methods Bilbo had suggested. “This will only postpone the inevitable,” he commented.

“He’s right,” Tauriel said. “Smaug _will_ destroy this place, whether it takes him a week or an hour. We need to plan for what happens after.”

“We have the caverns,” Beorn said. With a massive hand, he reshuffled the papers to reveal a map in white and black, which detailed the caverns beneath them. They stretched on for much further than Thranduil might have guessed; all of the tunnels connected to the cabin were sealed off, but there were many more passages that seemed to come from nowhere and go nowhere, holes chewed in the earth.

“A good strategy.” Tauriel said. “No matter how many Smaug has on his side, the narrow tunnels will even the odds.”

“But we’ll also be trapped,” Thranduil said.

“We may be able to break into the cave systems adjacent to ours, and escape to the surface through them.” She picked up a map of the surrounding area. “The traps you’re setting look good. We should rig some in the tunnels themselves, that we can spring manually once the fighting goes there.” A frown creased Tauriel’s brow. “The cabin is powered by propane?”

Beorn nodded. “500 gallons of it. We keep it in the concrete shed a safe distance from the cabin. Bard already suggested we disconnect the line from the cabin before the attack, lest they blow us off the face of the planet.”

“Hmph. Smart man.” Tauriel looked thoughtful. “Seems a waste not to use it for something, though…”

Her voice faded in and out of Thranduil’s concentration. So many details to attend to. They were already fighting for their lives, every hour, every minute, every minute action determining the course their final stand would take. His close encounter with the sun had cost him more than he’d thought. He couldn’t bring himself to care. He felt only tired. Tired of Thorin, tired of doubt, tired of waiting. With a muttered apology, he excused himself and trudged down the hallway to the basement.

The ladder, the dark corridors below. It used to be that he would wake to feel the sun slipping behind the horizon and know that a fresh night lay ahead of him. Now each time he woke it felt like an ending. Centuries bore down on him. For the first time since the death of his sire, he was tempted to lie down beneath that crushing weight.

Were it not for Bard, he might have indulged himself. As it was, he still had something worth fighting for—a mere human. How pathetic he had become.

The short moments before dawn were always the quietest. Many of Thorin’s coven were already asleep as Thranduil moved past their doors. He was drawn into the final room on the right by the tremble of a single heartbeat, slow and even in the last stages of sleep.

Thranduil closed the door and sank onto the bed without a word. Bard rolled over towards him with a murmur. Thranduil stared down at his face, which even half-asleep looked worn and exhausted. After a week of sharing the bed, they'd each grown accustomed to the erratic sleep patterns, the coming and going throughout the hours of the day and night. As if the bed were a waystation, a place that was nowhere except _between_. Thranduil could almost lay beside Bard without feeling the first stirrings of madness at the warm flesh that lay so near, the pulse of blood so close it might have been his own, _should_ have been his own.

Almost.

"What time is it." Bard spoke without moving, eyes shut, his words heavy and dull with sleep. For a moment Thranduil didn't answer, in case the man was talking in his sleep; but then Bard’s eyes cracked open to inspect Thranduil blearily.

"Almost dawn," Thranduil said. "You can sleep a few minutes more."

"Mm." They both knew he wouldn’t. Bard’s heart beat too fast, a weak, feverish pace. Thranduil knew he should wait to drink more, and take only a little, or risk draining Bard too deeply of strength he would soon need. "Anything to report?"

"Nothing." Thranduil settled down to face the ceiling, letting Bard’s warmth lull his body into relaxation. "Tauriel and I just returned from our rounds. We finished digging the eastern traps. We marked their location on the maps."

"I'm on daylight patrol today," Bard said. "I'll take a look at them.”

"Who will go with you?"

When Bard paused, Thranduil glanced at Bard from the corner of his eyes. He stared upwards with his lips in a thin line. "Sigrid's coming. I don't want her to; it isn't safe, not even in the daytime. But she and her brother made me promise I'd let them help, and it's better to have two on each patrol… in case something happens."

"A sound contingency."

"You were the one who suggested it, so don’t get too complimentary." He closed his eyes again for a brief moment, and Thranduil watched his eyelids stir and flicker. "They're good kids. Resilient. I can hardly believe how well they're doing under the circumstances.” He laughed harshly. “They're doing better than me, to be honest."

"You taught them through your own example." Thranduil did not fight the impulse to reach out and run his fingers through Bard’s hair, just as Bard did not resist the impulse lean in to the touch. The days had worn away at them both. They had no energy for anything but their simplest desires.

“Your hands are cold,” Bard murmured. In what might have been an unconscious gesture, he rested the backs of his fingers on Thranduil's cheek for a brief moment, as if he was testing for a fever. "You look tired."

He didn't mean tired, of course, but these were the euphemisms they had. "I'm fine. The dawn—”

"It's not the dawn," Bard said. His hand fell away from Thranduil's face to lie on the pillow between them. "I have time before my patrol. You'll still be here?"

How foolish to have to capitulate to something Thranduil wanted so badly. He could only nod. Bard slipped out of bed without another word, changing his clothes as Thranduil lay still, too tired to watch. By the time the door shut Thranduil felt the oblivion of daylight wash over him.

Much later, he was aware of the door opening once again, a body sliding under the sheets beside him. Without waking Thranduil rolled over and pressed closer, breathing in Bard's scent without opening his eyes. His body knew what it needed. Before his mind could stagger into awareness he was already tasting Bard's skin, the sweet rush of blood. There was only a short moment of caught breaths, bright twitching, a relief so sharp and inadequate it was its own kind of pain.

Afterwards Thranduil let himself be lulled by the tendrils of warmth that burrowed out from his stomach into his veins, his fingertips, his chest. He was aware, after a time, that Bard rose and left him again. But first he lay in Thranduil's gentling embrace, awake and lost in thoughts Thranduil would never know.

 _Are you with me because you want to be?_ he might have asked. _Do either of us have a choice anymore? What would it be if we did?_

He stayed silent. Sleep was more seductive than honesty.

 

* * *

 

 

Thranduil awoke some time later, alone. His senses were still dulled; the sun was still high. A glance at his phone confirmed it was late afternoon. Hours before he'd be able to leave the house. But until then, there was always more to do.

He rose, dressed with stiff motions, made his way into the hall with no real destination in mind. He could move deeper into the caves, to check on the stabilization efforts Thorin and his cronies had undertaken. Or there was the oil traps, carving more stakes, fortifying and fire-proofing the cottage; a hundred things to help them live a couple minutes longer than otherwise.

He stopped by Tauriel's door instead, and found it open. She was awake, sitting on the edge of her bed and staring into the dark corners of the room. Thranduil couldn't see her expression, but he could imagine it easily—the same mute blankness everyone wore these days, when they thought no one was looking.

He sat down beside her, and she shot him a wary glance. Exhaustion hadn’t softened her. She was honed like an old knife, brittle and sharp.

"I thought you would be resting," Thranduil said.

"I'm trying to cherish my waking moments. Bard still on patrol?"

Thranduil considered the question: he could not sense Bard anywhere in the house. Lately it had been easier than ever to reach out for the connection of shared blood between them. "He should be back soon."

"Thorin wants another meeting. Something about setting up a reservoir of water within the house."

Thranduil clicked his teeth behind his gums. "Irritating. Yet theoretically useful."

Tauriel's eyes traced the tangled web of shadows in the corner of the room like she could slowly pick it apart. "Smaug has an army," she said. "We're about to be besieged in a wooden hut. How does this end well for any of us?"

"I can't promise it will."

Tauriel's mouth twisted. "Could you lie to me, just this once?"

"Are you really asking me to?"

"No. Not really." Her fingers tapped on her knee, restless. "There are so few of us. We need more.”

Thranduil sighed. “We’re all there is, Tauriel.”

“And what of Legolas?”

Thranduil’s fingers twitched. Perhaps she had heard his phone call—perhaps she simply knew. He looked at Tauriel, a crimp of sadness in the set of his mouth. “Would you have him share our fate?” Tauriel said nothing. “What’s done is done. At least if all of us are destroyed, someone will live on to remember us. To keep the cause alive.”

“I suppose that’s best,” Tauriel said quietly. Thranduil could tell there was something more she was trying to say, a truth her eyes pushed towards him when they locked his gaze. “There’s still one other way we might increase our strength.”

Her eyes turned to the hallway, to the door across from hers. The room where the children slept.

At once, Thranduil understood. "No, Tauriel."

She hissed under her breath. "It's the smart thing to do, Thranduil. Smaug is turning as many new fledglings as it suits him—why shouldn't we?"

"Smaug is creating ill-formed monsters that will die within the month," Thranduil said. "What you're suggesting—"

"—would be a gift!" Tauriel's eyes shone in the half-light. "What else will you do with Bard, if you don't turn him eventually? And once you do, it will hardly be fair to expect him to watch the years claim his children, too. They're all young for the change, but between that or death I think they'd all understand. Even the youngest could be useful to us."

Thranduil waited until she fell silent. "Are you done?" Tauriel glared at him silently. "Good. Never speak of this again."

Tauriel leapt to her feet with a noise of disgust. "When did you become this sentimental? How did one human destroy you so utterly? I ought to ask Kili to turn them, he'd do it without question—"

"And you'd forfeit his life by doing so," Thranduil said without rising. He was too tired for the fury her words demanded. "I am not _sentimental_ , Tauriel. I am merely looking after my own—which includes you, lest you think that I would be more useful to you with no attachments whatsoever—"

His words stopped in his throat. A hand seemed to close over his mind and squeeze.

Thranduil blinked. “I—that is, I mean to say—” Thoughts scattered like cockroaches under the light. Something was happening. The heat lingering in his body seemed to sour and cool and curdle. His heart pounded in his chest.

But of course it wasn’t—his heart hadn’t beat in millennia. He blinked. “Tauriel, something—”

That was when the fear hit, doubling him over until he nearly pitched off the bed, a lurch that seized his chest and yanked, reaching from somewhere far away, the smell of leaves and the crackle of them beneath his hands, _Sigrid stay back_ —

"Thranduil?" Tauriel's voice turned sharp with concern. "What's happening?"

"Bard," Thranduil said through gritted teeth. The jolt of panic was fading now, leaving only its echo across the bond like the aftershock of some terrible earthquake. Thranduil staggered to his feet. Whatever had happened, whatever _was still happening_ , Thranduil could not help—he was trapped here by the daylight, remote from all but Bard’s terror. For the first time since they arrived at the cabin Thranduil felt fear of his own, oily and nauseating.

"Thranduil, wait," Tauriel cried from behind him, but he was already rushing for the ladder.

Upstairs Bilbo sat on the floor, spreading out papers all around them and chewing his way through an entire pack of cheap pens. He took one look at Thranduil’s expression and leapt up, scattering papers around his feet. "What's happened?"

"It’s Bard," Thranduil said. "I felt something—" He bit back the rush of words that threatened to slip out of his control. "He needs help."

Bilbo did not ask for clarification. Perhaps he thought of Thorin; perhaps he simply looked at the expression on Thranduil's face and drew his own conclusions.

"It's daylight," Bilbo said quietly. "That might not eliminate everything. But it gives us a better chance."

"Sigrid is with him," Thranduil said. The true weight of that sentence only hit as he heard himself speak it. _He had said it would be safer with two._

Bilbo's expression shifted ever so slightly, but then he merely nodded. "I’ll call Beorn. He'll know where they were supposed to be on their patrol route."

"You must look for both of them. Both, not just one," Thranduil said, the words not making much sense to his own ears, the demands without logic or sense.

"We'll get them," Bilbo said, as close to comfort as he was likely to come. "Step back. I'm going to open the door and meet Beorn."

Thranduil slunk into the shadows until he heard the door shut and latch.

"Is it Smaug?" From the other end of the hallway Tauriel's voice was quiet.

"We prepare for the worst," Thranduil said, the flatness of his tone removed from the actual implications of his words. "Wake the others. Contact Thorin. Draw everyone back from the caves and make sure they're armed."

"What about you?"

Thranduil hesitated. "I'll be here." He needed to wait for them. If Bard was with them—if he wasn’t—

As soon as Tauriel left, he began to lay out the weapons stocked in the kitchen. Stakes, a machete, a couple canisters of gasoline. Thranduil pocketed a lighter.

"What's going on?" a voice still thick with lingering unconsciousness said. Thranduil looked up to see a throng gathering in the hallway, what remained of Thorin's people awakened from their daytime sleep. The one who had spoken—Balin—had been turned as an older man, his white hair close-cropped and his eyes filled with human worry.

"Bard is in trouble," Thranduil said. "Beorn is going after him now. We need to be ready for what he brings back."

Balin’s mouth tightened. He turned to the others clustered at his back. "You heard him, lads. Grab a weapon or three. Everyone to their position."

The first of them had begun to step forward just as footsteps came stomping up the cabin's porch, followed by a familiar "Oi, hang on!" Thranduil's arm shot out to push back the stocky man beside him just before the cabin door flew open without warning. Sunlight flung against the opposite wall in a thick band, sending the rest of Thorin's band scuttling away from it on impulse. They were all out of its direct path, but its proximity made the hair on Thranduil’s arms stand up.

"Honestly!" Bilbo cried. "You could have incinerated someone!"

It was only when the door slammed shut that Thranduil risked looking. Bain and Tilda stood before them, blindly scanning the crowd. Bilbo stood just behind them, his hair disheveled and his arms crossed over his chest, his expression torn between exasperation and worry.

"Where's Da?" Tilda asked in a high voice.

"Is he still out there? What's happening?" Bain demanded. "It's still daytime—shouldn't we be safe? Bilbo said we all need to get inside, but he won't tell us what's happening." He shot Bilbo a poisonous glance.

"I'll look after them," Bilbo said to Thranduil, stepping forward to usher Bain and Tilda towards the couch near the back of the room.

"No," Thranduil said. "It should be me."

Bilbo looked up in surprise, but he did not argue. Bain, on the other hand, shot Thranduil a glare and then led Tilda to the other side of the room, settling them both on the couch and refusing to raise his eyes.

As the bustle around the weapons cache resumed, Thranduil made his way over to the couch where the two small humans huddled. He sat as far from them as he naturally could. Bain insisted on ignoring him; Tilda stared at him with mute desperation. He tried to think about what Bard would have said to them, what Bard would want _him_ to say. There was no well of tenderness that Thranduil could draw from to give them comfort. All he had was honesty, and the hope they were starved of it to the point it would be enough.

“You know that your father and I have a connection,” he began in quiet tones. “A few moments ago, I felt something. Your father’s emotions—specifically, his fear. There's a chance that nothing is wrong. There is also a chance that something is." Thranduil sat back, aware that Bain still hadn’t looked at him. The boy’s fists were clenched in the fabric of Tilda’s jacket, the knuckles blotched red and white.

"Did the monsters find us?" Tilda piped up, her eyes wide. Thranduil could feel fear coming off of her in frantic hummingbird-wingbeats.

"It's possible," he said. "In fact, it's very likely that Smaug's forces know where we are. But," he said, laying a careful emphasis on that word, "it is also daytime, and thus not as likely for them to launch an attack."

They didn’t relax, but neither did Tilda begin to cry. Bain started to say something, choked on his words, and then soldiered ahead anyways. "If—if Da was dead, would you know it?"

The question twisted a metal key in Thranduil's gut. He kept his face impassive. "I would like to think so."

Bain pulled Tilda closer, though who he was trying to comfort was difficult to say. "Why are you staying with us?" he asked over her head.

"Because your father would have wanted me to," Thranduil said. Bain looked away, and said nothing more.

It could not have been long that Thranduil sat with the children. Thorin and the rest of his party returned from the caves, tense and already armed. A tight-lipped hush fell over those in the cabin, waiting for a sound, a flicker of movement from the outside, anything but the interminable wait. Thranduil felt himself slip away, his mind flitting from thought to thought like a bird trying to and in a forest fire. There was so much left he wanted to say, things he needed Bard to hear. He had thought there would be time. Regret squeezed Thranduil’s throat shut.

Relief, when it came, sounded with the gentle buzz of Bilbo's phone.

The man jumped, clutching his pocket with a start before pulling it out. Every pair of eyes in the room watched him read the text, and slowly put his phone down again.

"Beorn has them," he said. "They're both… unharmed. They'll be back here momentarily."

"And Smaug?" Thorin demanded, his grip on the stake in his hand tightening.

"They are not being pursued," Bilbo said. "But… well. It's probably best if we just wait for them."

Thranduil glanced over at Tilda and Bain. The news that the remainder of their family was on the way had not eased their tension. Thranduil stayed by their side, moving no closer, uncertain what they needed yet unwilling to leave.

At long last, the sound of footsteps approaching the door. The three-knock signal that the door was about to open sounded—all who couldn't stand the light moved away before it did. Thranduil watched the light expand and contract over the wall, waiting for the darkness to return. He was already rushing forward by the time the door swung shut.

Bard stood whole and uninjured, one arm held tightly around Sigrid’s shoulders in what could have been a gesture of comfort, or a way of steadying himself. He was paler than Thranduil had ever seen him, his face drawn and tight, his eyes—he had _seen_ something. Thranduil knew that immediately. He could feel the tremor coming off him from almost across the room.

Tilda lunged off the couch and threw her arms around Bard’s middle. His hand came down to rest on the back of her head in a listless motion. He didn’t smile, even as Bain joined the embrace. Thranduil forced himself to linger back, it was hard to resist the impulse to drag Bard away and inspect every inch of him for injuries, to wring out his mind until every ounce of pain and fear was gone.

Beorn loomed behind them, his expression unreadable as ever. "No creatures out there now, as far as we can tell," he said. "Whatever happened is over."

Thorin stared at Bard as if the man were lying on a dissection table. "With me," he said shortly, and walked to the hallway without waiting to see if Bard would follow. "The rest of you wait here."

Bard paused to untangle himself from his children, squeezing their shoulders and saying nothing that the keen hearing in the room would have heard. His eyes met Thranduil’s. As Sigrid guided Bain and Tilda to the couch and held them tight without a word, Thranduil rose to follow Bard to the back room at the end of the hall.

It was small, packed with boxes and supplies. Thorin faced away from the door, his hands clasped behind his back. He sighed as Thranduil stepped into the room on Bard's heels. "I suppose it's useless to tell you to leave."

"Correct," Thranduil said coldly. Bard merely stood at his side, slumped-shouldered and mute. In a room this small it should have been impossible to ignore the play of Bard's emotions over his own. Instead, Thranduil felt almost nothing. A faint lightheadedness, perhaps, paired with a tremor in the man's hands which he kept pressed to his sides. Thranduil rested a hand between Bard's shoulder blades, to try and lend him some stability. If Bard felt his touch, he gave no sign of it.

Thorin ignored Thranduil entirely as he fixed Bard with the full intensity of his gaze. "If what you have to say is as bad as it looks, I'll need to control how the news is broken to the others. I don't want to sow panic."

Thranduil felt Bard's back shudder with a laugh that did not make it out his throat. "I'm very tired, Thorin. Too tired to play games." It was the first Bard had spoken since returning. He sounded shattered.

"Then we'll make this quick."  Thorin leaned forward ever so slightly, the faint light catching in his eyes. "What happened?"

Bard stared at a space on the floorboards. "We were nearing the last point on our patrol," he said hoarsely. "Beorn can tell you where. Sigrid and I were turning back when I slipped on the hillside, lost my pack. I told her to wait while I climbed down the slope to get it. There were no caves, no dark places near. I thought it would be safe."

Thranduil heard the click in Bard's throat as he swallowed. "There was a clearing where it flattened out. My pack had landed just outside it. It was only after I’d bent down to pick it up that I saw the bodies.”

At once Bard began speaking very quickly, as if trying to get it all out before something snapped around his throat to silence him. "They'd been arranged in a circle. Intentionally left there. Mutilated. Limbs broken. Twisted.” His hands clenched at his side. “Sigrid heard me scream. She almost saw.”

Thorin nodded slowly. "Smaug was always rough with his food. "

Alien fury tore through Thranduil like fire consuming gasoline. It slammed through their bond like the fall of a club. Thranduil almost wasn’t fast enough to grab the man’s hand as he reached for the stake, to yank him away from Thorin before Bard could try and tear him apart.  “This wasn’t food,” Bard snarled. “They were human beings. _People._ ” He shook Thranduil off, and Thranduil let him. The man was shaking, held together by mere will.

Thorin regarded Bard before, remarkably, looking away. “All the same,” he said. "We were meant to see this. A sign to unnerve us. A declaration of war.”

"No.” Bard turned to Thranduil, exhausted, afraid, filled with terrible certainty. "An extermination notice. Smaug is already here."


	27. Chapter 27

The night after they found the bodies, Bard did not sleep.

Neither did Beorn, as far as Bard could tell; Bilbo nodded off occasionally, only to jolt back into wakefulness, sticking fingers beneath his glasses to rub at aching eyes. No nightly patrol wandered the woods that night; scouts were posted within sight of the cabin. Bard could see their shadows prowling around the edges of the perimeter, staring out into a deeper darkness beyond. Always he was aware of Thranduil drifting in and out of the haze around him. For most of the night he sat at Bard’s side. At times Bard would startle awake only to find he had begun to lean on the other man’s shoulder.

Inside, the watch continued. Silent figures waited at every door and window. Dwalin sat near the door, fingering the blade of an old axe with Beorn at his side. The large woodsman had no weapon that Bard could see, and yet his presence left Bard on edge, as much a threat as protection.

Bard had his bow. He'd cared for it meticulously earlier in the evening, when there was still light in the sky. Bard had pulled up a chair beside his children’s beds as they slept in the final hours of daylight, took out his grandfather's bow and kit, and began using his hands to kill his mind.

He had oiled the wood, inch by inch, buffing it down until it gleamed. He restrung the bow, checked its familiar give, then set to work on the arrows. He'd carved many more as the days went on, and each of their points was sharp enough to punch through cloth and flesh. He didn't want to think about that. He had whittled more.

All night he sat with the bow across his knees, a bucket of arrows by his chair and his face turned out to the night. The cool air from the window stiffened the skin of his face, moonlight coated the world in ash. And Bard remembered fire, of how it had crept up the wall of his front hallway, of his neighbor's hallways, greasy and reaching for more. Memories were all he had now, though they brought him little comfort.

That first night, nothing happened. No one came. They were—safe.

"It's what Smaug does," Thranduil said tiredly. "He will make us wait, knowing it can only make us weaker."

The security of the daytime was far worse than the night. The house was still but for the quiet movements of those that stayed awake to keep guard in the house above. Bard lay in bed and tried to sleep. As soon as he closed his eyes, he saw the twisted bodies again.

That was when he went to find Beorn, outside cutting wood. "I want to go back, and bury them," Bard said without preface.

Beorn paused in his work to swipe a hand over his forehead. "There's not enough time before dark."

"It's still morning."

"I counted eight bodies. There's only two of us. Unless you'd like your children to help."

If Bard had been closer, he might have been tempted to punch him, height and axe be damned. Instead he clenched his fists silently and waited.

After a few more wooden blocks were splintered in two, Beorn rested his hands on the handle of his axe and sighed. “I suppose we could burn them.”

“No,” Bard said. When Beorn looked at him in askance he forced his fists to unclench. “They should be buried—as humans. They deserve that much."

Beorn regarded him for a long time. Bard waited. At last he set down his axe with a thud against the grass. "We’ll do as many as we can," he said, and so they went.

They managed it, by some miracle. The bodies hadn't been moved. Beorn had the foresight to bring cloths soaked in an infusion of fragrant herbs, and made sure they were both wearing them before they came near the clearing. Even through the cloth Bard could pick up the smell. He tried not to look at them as he lifted his shovel.

By midday his arms and back had grown so painful they were almost numb, but he kept digging. Beorn had muttered a couple times about needing to return to the cabin, but by midafternoon he dug without comment.

They finished the mass grave when the sun was beginning to drift beyond the branches of the trees. Moving the bodies was a whole new effort, and Bard would not allow himself to remember any of it. He could feel it, though. Stiff flesh beneath his hands, so cold he could feel it through his gloves. Joints that had frozen into their final, awful positions, almost immovable, so that Bard felt as if he were dragging pieces of furniture across the sunlit clearing. He closed his eyes, and did not consider it a weakness.

It was near sunset by the time they returned to the cabin, stinking of sweat and dirt and things unspeakable. "There's a spring-fed shower out back," Beorn said. "I'm going down to the river."

Bard didn't have to tell him to come back quickly. They both felt the weight of the night approaching.

He showered quickly, scrubbing with harsh soap until his skin was nothing more than a stinging abrasion over sore muscles. He wrapped the towel around his waist and stared down the pile of clothes he'd cast to the side of the wooden stall. He left them where they lay. If he survived the night, he'd burn them in the morning. He'd rather have walked in naked than had to touch them again.

Too tired to feel ridiculous, he walked to the front door in nothing but a towel, rapped the signal on the wood and then opened the door. He'd scarcely got the door closed again when Thranduil lunged out of the safety of hallway.

"What were you thinking?" he hissed. "It's almost sundown. You were gone all day. Are you trying to get yourself killed? Is high-stakes _bathing_ really how you wish to die?"

Bard waited for him to finish. Damp and shivering in the cool air, he watched Thranduil's face without seeing it. Bard’s mind kept slipping backwards, like he was climbing an icy slope and at the bottom was the clearing.

At last, when Thranduil seemed to realize that Bard was not going to defend himself, he silently shoved a ball of clean clothes into Bard's arms.

"Thank you," Bard said, the words feeling gummy and odd  in his mouth. He didn't try to remember when the last time he slept was. The room was empty but for Thranduil and him. They were alone in the cabin; Thranduil opened his mouth, perhaps to offer Bard some privacy. Bard merely shrugged, shook out his clothes, and began dressing.

Thranduil did not turn away. He stared, not hungrily but with an intensity Bard could feel on his skin as he pulled on his clothes with painstaking care. He was too tired to feel self-conscious. He realized that if Thranduil were to reach out, were to ask him for what he was showing, Bard would give it to him without question. But though he could see Thranduil wanted to, perhaps badly wanted to, he did not extend a hand until Bard was fully dressed, and then only to smooth down a rumpled seam near his collar.

"The others will be up shortly," Thranduil said at last. "Our watch will begin at sundown."

 

* * *

 

The bow. The chair. The dark window.

Another night passed, and there was no attack. Not once did Bard think of sleep, though his body trembled feverishly until daybreak. Dawn came, and there were no new bodies to bury. No more arrows to whittle. Nothing but the dry pounding of his heartbeat in his eyes. Today, he knew, he would have to sleep.

He stared at the ceiling. He'd been lying in bed for what felt like hours, just resting, never letting himself drift into the first stages of sleep. The children were in their beds, as safe as they were going to be. Thranduil stood guard somewhere in the house, watching over him from afar. All Bard had to do was close his eyes.

Fighting sleep was a familiar exercise. He could remember when it was Thranduil who had been waiting in his dreams, painted in red shades of terror and lust that Bard had not wanted or understood. The shadows on the ceiling spun and twisted. Bard blinked, and they steadied—but before long they were dancing again, layers of darkness tossing and rolling like the sea.

He could feel his body lying in the bed, the hot cloying sheets tight around him; but his eyes stared out into the forest, to a grey-black world defined by the dark columns of the tree trunks, the grass that stood still in the moonlight like the grey pelt of an animal.

A dream. Even knowing what was happening, Bard could not wake himself. His body felt heavy, limbs pinned to the bed by sleep. But he was moving—moving through the trees, gliding over a path that was familiar to him now. The patrol route. He'd walked it many times. But this time—

He tried to jolt himself awake, tried to tear free of the threads of sleep that laced over his mind and pinned him down. He couldn't move. He couldn't shout. He could only watch as the trees parted around him, as he saw the clearing open up, saw that there were only three bodies now, small and pale and twisted into grotesque shapes, lying silent in the grass.

"No," he choked out, but there was no air in his lungs—no air in the world, this silent, dead place—and the figures in the grass were rising, pushing themselves up on their twisted limbs, and staggering towards him, heads twisted backwards, limbs bent wrong, scuttling over the grass like spiders, their voices crying out for him because they knew he hadn't saved them—

He saw Sigrid's jaw twisted askew—

He saw Bain's fingers twitching and broken in the grass—

He saw Tilda—

" _Bard_ —"

He woke, thrashing and crying out, something gripping him from behind so that he couldn't bolt for the door. He didn't have the strength to fight it, and so he simply hung there, suspended in the aftermath of the nightmare, until his eyes began to clear and he saw the sheets tangled around his legs, and the arms wrapped around his shoulders.

"It's alright," Thranduil said, a measured voice in his ear. "You were dreaming."

Bard took a few shuddering breaths before speaking. The room was still spinning, and he was still, _still_ so tired. "What time is it?" Bard asked at last. His voice only shook slightly at the end.

"Eleven in the morning."

Bard groaned, despair welling up in the back of his throat like bile. The entire day ahead of him still, and somehow he was supposed to sleep through it. He felt Thranduil at his back, supporting a good part of his upper body. Bard let himself lean back into him, his eyes drifting down to slits.

"I don't think I can do this," Bard said.

Thranduil’s arms encircled Bard's shoulders, almost pinning his arms down, yet Bard felt no prickle of anxiety. He was tired of fear. Tired of fighting. Tired of wanting and not wanting to want. Selfish enough to take what comfort he could find.

"Sleep." Thranduil's mouth was pressed to the top of his head.

Bard stared straight ahead. The darkness was starting to swirl again, just as it had before. "I can't." There was no heartbeat in the chest Bard lay against; no warmth in the arms that held him. He felt Thranduil hesitate. Then his fingers reached up to trace a line from the corner of Bard's jaw to his clavicle. "I can drain enough to help you."

" _No_." The dreams. "I can't go to sleep. Not like this. I need—" The words seized up in Bard's throat, thick and unformed. He struggled free of Thranduil’s grasp, stumbling out of bed. Thranduil let him go, but followed as he staggered towards the door. Bard didn’t open it; merely set his palms to its surface and pressed his forehead against it, trying to breathe evenly.

When he turned around Thranduil was standing a short distance away. For a moment they simply studied each other. Bard’s body had already taken him as far as he was going to go. He leaned back against the door with a sigh and let his eyes slide up to the ceiling, then beyond. It was only thanks to solid wood behind him that he could remain steady on his feet. "I know I should sleep. But trust me, it won't do me any good."

Thranduil stared at him as if he could see through to the workings of his skull. Or at least, like he'd very much like to. "Smaug loves our fear more than he loves our blood," he said. “He fills your nightmares with losing the things you love most. And then he makes them a reality.”

"I won't let him take them," Bard whispered. It sounded very small against the darkness around them. "Not the children. I’ll die first."

He saw Thranduil's shoulders tighten, almost imperceptivity. Bard had become very good at reading Thranduil’s body language; it was the only way to guess at what he was truly thinking. "We aren't always given a choice."

Bard felt as if the pressure in his head ought to rupture, and yet all it did was build and build. "Smaug killed your sire."

Across the distance that separated them, Thranduil went still. "I do not speak of it."

Bard closed his eyes. It eased some of the strain. "After my wife died, I watched Sigrid and Bain forget pieces of their mother every year. Watched Tilda grow up never knowing her at all. I had no one—I didn't let myself have anyone. I felt like the more I let myself move on, then there’s be nothing of her left. I had no idea how to be happy anymore."

The words spilled out haltingly, unpracticed and unrefined. Yet it felt good to same them, even knowing who he was saying them to. When Bard opened his eyes Thranduil had turned away, staring into the dark corners of the room where nothing could stare at him back. Bard inspected the profile of his face, and remembered the way the scars had twisted over the skin.

"I had dreams too," Thranduil said at last. "Sometimes I still do. I see it exactly as it happened, every time."

The door was cold against Bard’s back. He let it support him, give him the strength to push. "Tell me."

Thranduil drew a breath, the air he would need for words but not life. "Smaug captured my sire and I in the battle," he began. "Brought us to an abandoned barn, bound us to wooden chairs. He poured the oil over her, but allowed none to touch me. I was meant to watch her burn. And I did."

Thranduil smiled thinly, and let his fingertips trail over the side of his face. That light touch alone seemed to summon up centuries of agony. "The fires worked more slowly on me. Eventually they weakened the chair I was bound to enough that I could break free. I fled the inferno, burrowed under a thin layer of dirt and remained in that shallow grave for almost a week. Some nights I awaken and feel it covering me still, smell the smoke and the oil.” 

Bard looked away, a painful knot in his chest. This was a strange barter they had started, trading wounds for wounds and scars for scars. And yet, it felt good. For the first time in years, Bard wanted to talk about it. "Before you came into my life, part of me was still in that hospital waiting room at—ready for the doctor to come out and tell me Tilda had been born, safe and healthy, waiting in her mother's arms. I thought I could never leave that moment." Bard swallowed, felt the click in the back of his throat like the cocking of a gun. “I guess I’m not living in my own shadow anymore.” He held Thranduil’s gaze. “Are you?”

Thranduil's mouth twisted. He took a step closer, within arm’s length now. “Shadows are all my kind has. And yet, lately I find myself yearning for something more.” Slowly, Thranduil raised a hand to brush the hair away from Bard's face, then slid over his neck. Once Bard had been so starved for touch he’d wanted nothing more than Thranduil’s hands on him. That want had not disappeared; it had merely changed just as Thranduil had, into something dark and malformed.

He reached up to Thranduil's hand in his own. The skin was faintly warm, from whenever Thranduil had fed from him last. "I can never truly forgive what you’ve done to me."

Thranduil's fingers tightened around his. "I will never ask you to.” After a pause, he looked away, almost seemed to hesitate. "Will you still stay with me tonight, regardless?" _Tonight_ —their last night. That was what he was saying, what everyone else already suspected. Bard stared at him. Thranduil had scarcely ever looked less human than he did right now, pale and wasted with the faint blood-starved shadows of scars from many centuries ago still darkening the side of his face. There was nothing vulnerable in him. He stood against his pain like an ancient building, weathered and wracked by the elements, but though stone could be cast down and worn away, it could never be soft.  

"I don't want to sleep," Bard said.

Thranduil stared at him, face carefully blank. “And what do you want, Bard?”

Bard lifted Thranduil’s hand. He could feel the shift of tendon and bone beneath the skin, long elegant fingers so very human. They were beautiful—he could see that now. Hatred had carved a hole in Bard's chest. Now hatred was gone, and something else had come to fill the space, like a bird nesting in a burnt-out lantern. Bard felt the stirrings of it in his chest even now, but its song was silent and unlovely.

Bard had never asked for this. But it was his, and he would make it his choice.

"I want," Bard said, and guided Thranduil's hand to his chest, "to be back home.”

Thranduil’s expression was unreadable. “I want,” Bard continued, taking Thranduil’s other hand and raising it to his lips, “to go back to before all of this happened. Back before everything was terrifying and incomprehensible. Back to when I thought you were just a man.”

“I’m not, Bard.” Thranduil’s voice was tense as Bard brushed a kiss over his knuckles. “I can’t be that for you.”

“I want you to try,” Bard said, and he leaned forward. His lips scarcely touched Thranduil’s, careful, delicate, but the brush of contact was like a spark to dry brush.

“Very well,” Thranduil whispered against his mouth. “I will.”

He led Thranduil to the bed and pushed him down onto it. Thranduil’s shirt came off quickly, and the rest of his clothes followed. Bard stared down at him in near-fascination: his skin was flat and translucent under the lamplight, some pale dead thing that twitched under Bard’s gaze. He was all hollows and muscles and bones pushing up within the flesh. Bard looked away in mild and ridiculous embarrassment when his eyes slid over Thranduil’s cock. He reached for the lamp by the mattress, the only source of light in the room.

Thranduil caught his wrist. “Leave it on,” he said. His voice was rough, and made Bard’s stomach lurch pleasantly. “I want to look at you.”

Bard hesitated a moment before settling onto the bed. When he tugged his shirt over his head Thranduil’s gaze roved over the freshly bared skin, his fingers following suite—tracing the minute scars that marked Bard’s chest. His fingers drifted from Bard’s collarbones flecked with bite-marks; the healed dots and scrapes from Thranduil’s teeth ran like lines of Morse code across his chest.

“I remember every one of these,” Thranduil murmured. “Our whole history, written in skin.” His cool fingers reached up to touch Bard’s neck, and linger over the oldest scar of all. A chill traveled over Bard’s skin, like the cold touch of brickwork and the smell of cigarette smoke. It didn’t frighten him like it used to.

Bard reached down to finish stripping himself bare. Thranduil’s eyes devoured every inch of skin without the relief of touching them. No doubt Thranduil could feel his heart pounding like a war drum. Yet he turned away—leaning over the edge of the bed and rummage in his bag. When Thranduil straightened with a small bottle of lubrication, a breathless laugh burst out of Bard’s lungs. “Were you just carrying that around?”

Thranduil shrugged. A smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. “I thought it best to be prepared.”

Bard chuckled again, stretching out over the mattress as Thranduil’s hands settled on his waist. It felt good to laugh. “Or you were planning this all along.”

Thranduil brought his lips to the jut of Bard’s hip. Bard’s hand settled in his hair. He craned his head to watch the way Thranduil’s kisses wandered down his thigh, so close to where Bard wanted them. “Do you want me to say that I was? That I’ve been thinking about how I would fuck you?” Thranduil’s eyes were closed as if he were savoring something terribly sweet, but when he opened them to glance up at Bard their expression was dangerous. The yellow lamplight made even his pale, bloodless skin look warm.

“The idea has its appeal.” Bard squeezed his eyes shut as Thranduil nuzzled into his inner thigh, where the blood leapt and jumped beneath his skin.

“Look at me, Bard.”

His eyes locked on to Thranduil’s without hesitation. Bard couldn’t look away as Thranduil lowered his mouth to his inner thigh. Thranduil’s face was set in a terrible calm. Bard knew what was about to happen even before Thranduil opened his mouth and sank his teeth through the delicate skin over his femoral artery.

Bard jerked, his hands spasming on the bedcovers. Pain and the hot pounding of blood slammed through him, bleeding edges of pleasure. “Thranduil,” he grasped, and the movements stilled—Thranduil raised his head to meet Bard’s eyes, blood staining his mouth, his pupils blown out wide. At once Bard realized he didn’t want him to stop. He slid his fingers into Thranduil’s hair, and pressed his face back to the wound.

“God, yes, like that,” he mumbled, head twisted to the side. He could feel the way Thranduil’s tongue lapped at the gentle flow of blood, filling him even as it drained him. When slick fingers slid between his legs and then inside of him he could only moan and yield.

Thranduil’s tongue ran up the inside of his thigh as his fingers continued their work. “It could have been like this the whole time, you know. All those nights on your hard bathroom floor…”

The pressure inside of him curled, thrusting and probing until Bard twisted and gasped. “It wouldn’t have been like this,” Bard panted. “This could only happen here. Now. Like this.”

“Because we’re about to die?” Thranduil’s fingers pressed deeper inside of him, and Bard hadn’t known how good it could feel to be pushed apart, dug into, claimed.

“Because I finally know what I want.” He buried his fingers in Thranduil’s hair and dragged him up until they were face to face again, savoring the hiss of Thranduil’s discomfort as much as the sharp amusement in his eyes. The absence of his fingers and mouth was like a dull ache, an emptiness. Bard felt the touch of Thranduil’s hand against his cheek, warmed by his own blood.

“And what do you want?” Thranduil said.

Without hesitation, Bard pulled Thranduil’s head back by his hair and applied his teeth to Thranduil’s throat. He bit hard enough to bruise, almost hard enough to break the skin, and then sucked at the tender flesh, cooling it with his tongue. Thranduil cried out, low and guttural, his hips jerking helplessly against Bard’s. The cords of his neck standing out like garroting wire. Thranduil did not try to pull away as Bard continued his ministrations. He thrust against Bard, again and again, his fingers digging into the pillow.

“You would have been a _terror_ as one of us,” Thranduil groaned. “I doubt even I could have survived you.”

Bard licked the side of his neck, as if he could taste the bruises he’d left there. “Are you sure you’ll survive me now?”

“Arrogant.” His hand slid down to wrap around Bard’s cock.

Bard’s breath went out of him with a shudder. The sensation splintered through him like shards of light, almost painful. He stared up into Thranduil’s face, the planes of it painted in light and shadow, and thought about a different world, an alley, two men, the terror and joy that came the moment before the monster bared its teeth. How he’d gasped and squirmed just like this with his back to the cold brick wall, how Thranduil had looked at him so differently. Thranduil’s expression was just as hungry now. But his eyes were soft, desperate.

“I like seeing you this way,” Thranduil said. His voice was quiet. He stared down at Bard without the decency of shame, devouring every twitch of his face, every sharp hitch in his breath. Bard felt him shift, felt the press of Thranduil’s cock sliding against his inner thigh. It was already slick. Bard reached down to touch it, his hand clumsy with the thrill in his blood **,** yet when his fingers closed around it Thranduil groaned and jerked into it as if caught in an electrical current. Bard watched him, transfixed. He wondered if this was how his face looked, when Thranduil sank his teeth into him.

“Keep doing that,” he said, his voice little more than a growl as he thrust into Bard’s hand. He had no breath to hitch—it was only when he spoke that Bard heard the shudder in it. He stared at Bard’s face, mouth twitching hungrily. “Still think I’m a monster?” His tone was almost ironic.

Bard tightened his hand around Thranduil’s cock as he leaned forward. Thranduil’s jaw clenched and twitched beneath his lips. “Maybe. But you’re _mine_.” 

Suddenly Bard found his wrists in a grip of iron, pinned above his head in one of Thranduil’s hands hard enough to make his breath catch. “Yes,” Thranduil whispered as he shifted his weight, fitting their bodies more closely together. Bard wrapped a leg around Thranduil’s waist as Thranduil reached between them to position his cock. Then he began to push in.

Bard’s breath hissed out through his teeth as twisted against Thranduil’s weight, the pressure inside of him, the hand drifting over his forehead so tenderly. He writhed like he was trying to get away, except he was fighting to get closer, to stay still, to let his body take what it wanted. Thranduil’s eyes were locked on his as he pressed deeper, shuddering slightly. Bard grunted as Thranduil thrust down into him against the mattress, struggling to keep his breathing steady against the sense of violation, his body fighting and accepting it in equal measure. It felt strange. It felt _good_.

“Is this what you wanted from me?” Bard managed to say. “All this time?”

Thranduil chuckled. Even he sounded breathless. He gave a shallow thrust that made the blood pound behind Bard’s eyes. “You can’t begin to comprehend all that I’ve wanted from you, Bard.” He thrust again, harder this time, still keeping Bard’s wrists pinned above his head. Bard felt no desire to try and pull away. With his other hand, Thranduil reached down to take Bard’s cock, stroking it in rhythm with the rocking of his hips.

Bard licked his lips, let his mouth hang open as Thranduil fucked him. When Thranduil released his wrists it was only to brace a hand against the headboard and thrust even faster. A curse tore from Bard’s throat as he felt Thranduil drive into him. Bard wouldn’t last much longer; he could already feel the waves climbing up the inside of his spine. A new and unfamiliar instinct guided Bard’s fingers back into Thranduil’s hair and tugged his head into the crook of his neck, pressing Thranduil’s face against the flesh and holding it there, Thranduil breathing him in, feeling his heart pound and pound and pound.

“Do it,” Bard grunted through his teeth. Thranduil’s hips jerked. His mouth was open against Bard’s artery, no gasps of breath, no cries of pleasure—just open, tasting the heat and salt of his sweat, the different currents that ran beneath. Bard ground up into him and Thranduil drove in harder, sunk his teeth in, and suddenly _whitehotpainpleasuregodwhatisthishowisthisnodon’tstopdon’tstopDON’TSTOP_ , he was Thranduil and Thranduil was him, the blood on his tongue and the pressure inside him, moving in and out as Thranduil drank him in, as Bard fucked him, flowed into him, tightened his nails into Bard’s shoulders and felt their bite, chasing each other, falling apart, the edge right there, and both of them tilting over it _—_

When they came together Thranduil slammed his hips forward as Bard crushed himself against them, the pain in his neck coming to a point so sharply it was almost unbearable, a different edge to fall over. But then he was back, returning to himself in slow and dizzying circles, sprawled on the bed with Thranduil on top of him and utterly spent. His neck stung faintly, but Thranduil wasn’t drinking; his face rested against Bard’s skin, and he inhaled through his nose as if savoring the first drought of spring.

For a long time Bard just lay there, incapable of doing anything but that, not even wanting to. “Not bad,” he managed at last. “If this is the last fuck I’ll ever have… I guess I can live with it.” Even his voice sounded weak. Thranduil chuckled, a quiet sound in Bard’s ear.

As tempting as it was to succumb to a stupor, Bard leaned over to the side of the bed to pull out an extra blanket to lay over the soiled sheets. Thranduil watched him with a dazed expression that Bard had to stop and savor—his eyes were glazed with pleasure like the first sun-melt on the ice of a lake. That shade of blue had captivated Bard from the moment he met those eyes. He’d almost forgotten how beautiful he’d found them, before they’d become an emblem of terror.

Bard leaned in to brush a small, quiet kiss to Thranduil’s lips. It became something slow, an exploration, gentler than Bard had thought either of them was capable of. He could taste his own blood on Thranduil’s lips. He pressed his fingers into the dimples on Thranduil’s back, pulling him closer.

“Will you sleep now?” Thranduil whispered, and Bard could scarcely nod. He felt it coming like a rising wave.

“Stay with me,” Bard murmured, and was asleep before he could hear Thranduil’s answer.

 

* * *

 

Bard opened his eyes.

Exhaustion still weighted down his limbs, but sleep had dulled its raw edge—his muscles felt pleasantly sore rather than aching and feverish. He rolled over, pressed his forehead between Thranduil's shoulder blades until he realized he was waiting for the other man to draw breath. His body had cooled in the night, but still felt soft and pliant. Bard thought about waking him up again to chase that softness with his tongue. But sleep was a more valuable commodity, a survival strategy. So instead Bard slipped out of bed without disturbing Thranduil’s sun-laden slumber, and wasn't sure whether it was a kindness or a cruelty.

He pulled on some fresh clothes and padded down the hallway. A quick glance into the children's room confirmed they were all still sleeping. Even in sleep their faces looked grey and haggard, far too old. If they made it out of this he thought they'd all sleep for a week. If. He moved on before his throat could close up in grief.

The house was quiet—it was still daytime. One of Thorin's guards, Ori, nodded at him from one of the windows, wood shavings around her chair and a bucket of stakes between her knees.

"Still a few hours of daylight left," Ori said. Her eyes behind her glasses were perpetually wide. It might have been easy to forget what she was, were it not for the way her eyes lingered on his throat. "You should come in early today."

Bard stared at the dark wood of the door. "Do you think it will be tonight?"

Ori looked at him blankly. "Can't you feel it too?"

Bard didn't say anything. He slipped out the door and stepped into the sunlight. It was already drifting behind the straight-backed pines, an eye peering through a cage of fingers. Bard watched it for a long time, until his eyes watered and stung and his vision tracked a colorless blank spot wherever he looked. It was impossible to say goodbye to the sun. His biology was not equipped to comprehend a life without it any more than it could comprehend the death drawing closer by the hour.

Thoughts like that didn't frighten him anymore. They would, he thought, once the darkness stretched out to seize them, and dying went from a thought to an action.

He stepped around back to the shower and let the water run over his skin long after he knew he was clean. The memory of Thranduil's fingers pressed up from inside of his skin. The thought didn’t disturb him as it once might have. Bard had swallowed him whole.

He stepped out of the shower and shook the water out of his hair, dressing quickly. The shade of the trees stretched over him now, chilly on his bare skin. On instinct his eyes scanned the tree line as he finished pulling his pants up. A prickle ran along the back of his neck, but there was no motion, nothing but dust and pollen in the horizontal shafts of light. Still daylight. He should be safe.

Except that his eyes kept returning to the same place on the forest floor, just past the first barrier of the trees. The ground was dimpled strangely under a carpet of moss, a four-foot circle punched down like the impression of a massive fist. Bard had walked this way on his patrols all week—something had changed. Perhaps, something had been digging.

Slowly Bard took  step up to its perimeter and knelt down to press a hand to the ground. It felt damp despite the sunlight that shifted over it. Strange enough to report. He straightened up and began to step back.

A strange flipping in his stomach was the only warning he had.

The ground beneath him disappeared like a pair of hands opening with a sound like ripping cloth. His legs kicked out into open airs, fingers scraping the dirt, nails tearing, moving too fast, he was under and knives were raking down his back and then he was falling, a sudden dreamlike drop and the darkness rushed up—he felt the crunch of his legs hitting something hard. He crumpled like a doll and stopped moving.

It was difficult to climb back into himself when his body was so twisted. Thoughts swirled like flies around his head, panic and shock buzzing in tune. The knowledge of pain came like a wave retreating before the next break. His face was pressed to something hard; when he tried to push himself up he felt all the strength in his body slide out of his right leg like a massive splinter being yanked out. And his back—it was a fainter pain, but it danced over the skin in feathers and quills. He gasped. His mouth was wet as well. Blood? It tasted of stone.

For a while he lay still, waiting for the pain in his leg to ebb. His slowly adjusted to the dimness, in the light that was coming from above him—yes, because he had fallen. The pieces began to settle into place. He had fallen through a weak point in the ground into the caves the cabin was built on. And he was hurt. Very badly.

A stirring of icy air on his face suggested that he was in a passage of some kind, rather than wedged in a crevice. Perhaps it even connected with the caves where the others were sleeping. There was a chance. There was also a chance that these caves led somewhere else entirely, and that by the time his absence was noted and one of the humans sent out to look for him, the sun would be going down.

He needed to roll over and sit up. The idea felt impossible; but he gritted his teeth, letting his breath hiss out as quickly as he could, before giving a slow, agonizing push against the stone beneath him. He rolled onto his back with a cry of pain he couldn’t bite back, and when he stared upwards he thought the ground had closed up over his head. But then the black dots over his vision began to clear, and the circle of sunlight opened like a bleary eye.

He stared up at it, listening to the panting of his breathing and the wet trickle of water somewhere deeper in the cave. By lifting his head he could squint at his legs. What he saw made him gag **.** A splinter of bone came out of his shin, glistening in the half-light.

Bard let his head fall back and squeezed his eyes shut. His breath hissed through his teeth like the panting of a wild animal. When he was certain he could keep his bile down, he forced himself to look again. It was clear he could do nothing to set the leg himself. That wasn’t what worried him. Though most of his body was still in the circle of watery light from above, his legs stretched out into the darkness beyond.

When he tried to contract his body into the light, the pain felt like his bone was being split with a chisel. The yell that tore free of his lips echoed around the rocks, magnified, until he could only slump back down and stare at the hole above him.

"Help," he croaked. His voice seemed to echo for a long time. There was no reply, no whisper of sound that suggested he might have been heard.

The pain in his leg had dulled to a persistent throb that would become unbearable if he let his mind linger on it. Nails dragged through the skin on his flesh, more painful the longer he lay on it. He squinted at the hole he had fallen through and tried to determine whether he could somehow climb. The thought was futile, but he needed to do something. The rock around him was smoothed by time—higher up in the cave it looked as if the stone had been raked and torn apart, leaving ragged razor gashes like ragged wounds. That must have been what had torn into his back, scraping down it as he fell.

With a lurch in the pit of his stomach Bard realized that if gravity had dragged him over those knifelike rocks it could have torn his back to ribbons. He must be losing blood. Even he could smell it. And there was no telling what the smell would attract.

“Help!” he cried, louder this time, though his voice dissipated uselessly around him. “Can anyone—is there anyone there?” The sunlight wavered through the shifting leaves far above to dance over Bard’s face. It stared down at him like the face of a clock.

" _Hello_?"

The sound of a voice from above was so unexpected that Bard almost forgot to respond. "Here!" he shouted. "I'm down here! Hey!"

Moments later, a curly head of hair appeared over the edge.

"Bard? Good lord!" Bilbo cried.

Bard laughed as best as he was able. "You have no idea what a relief it is to hear your voice."

"How on earth did you—no, there's no time. Can you climb any higher up?"

"I don't think so," Bard said, dead certain he couldn’t. "I hurt my leg and back."

"Yes, Thranduil mentioned as such. It seems he had a very unpleasant wake-up when he felt you fall. You're going to drive him to distraction at this rate."

"I'll welcome the opportunity, as soon as you get me out of here."

"Just hold on. Beorn is on patrol, but I'll radio him right away. Try not to move."

"Won't be a problem.” Bilbo disappeared. Seeing him gone, Bard almost opened his mouth to call him back. He was alone in the darkness again.

A cold sweat broke out over Bard’s body, fear and pain and adrenaline sapping his heat away. He pictured Thranduil pacing the floor of the cabin even now, his teeth clicking impatiently, ready to upbraid Bard for his carelessness even as he bent to tend to his wounds. The thought was a small comfort.  

A clink of falling rock sounded from deeper in the cave.

Bard’s breath halted in his throat. Nothing but the _plink_ of dripping of water, the rasp of wind squeezing through narrow rocky passages. What might have moved deep in that cracked-open darkness to make such a sound? Bats? Insects? Or perhaps it was only a natural sort of shifting, the earth settling in. His eyes retraced the weakened structure of the rock above him, the sharp gouges like fingers—like claws. Had something _dug_ its way close to the surface, raking straight through stone and then stopping just short of the sunlight? He remembered traps like that used to catch wild boar, to send them tumbling down onto the stakes at the bottom.

When the sound in the dark came again, it was louder and closer.

"Bilbo?" This time Bard's voice hardly seemed to echo at all. There was no reply. Bard craned his head back to stare at his patch of sky. Still daylight. But outside of the weak circle of light the caves were as dark as any night.

A new sound was emerging out of the trickling darkness, a whispered susurration slithering over the stone.

"Bilbo!" Bard shouted at the top of his voice. "Can you hear me? There's something else down here!"

There was no voice, no reply but the slithering that came from nowhere and grew closer.

Bard squinted around him. The darkness cut them at the knee. He could already imagine the sudden pressure, the yank, sliding out of the light and fully into the dark. The light was the only protection he had.

With a grunt of pain, Bard slowly levered himself into half of a seated position. His stomach muscles trembled at that simple exertion. One leg was scarcely injured, and yet pulling it forward with the help of both hands had beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead. His injured leg still splayed out into the shadows, and it seemed once he began to move the shifting noises began to quicken.

Bard lay both his hands just below the knee. Though he was shaking with cold, his flesh burned even through the fabric of his clothing. His hands shook from the moment he gripped his leg, but he squeezed his eyes shut once more and threw all his weight and strength into one sharp _yank_ , flinging himself backwards and dragging the leg along with him, feeling the bone scraping inside of his flesh, feeling the pain in the very roots of his teeth—

And then it was over. He lay curled up fully in the circle of light, breath puffing in the dust. The slithering noise had stopped.

"Well _done_."

The voice came out of the darkness, deep and rich and _close_ , close enough to freeze the blood in Bard's veins.

"That did look quite painful. And yet here you are. Safe, in the sunlight. Quite beyond my reach."

Ten seconds ago Bard would not have thought he could ever move on his own volition again. Now, adrenaline helped him pull his functioning limbs all the closer, his eyes wildly raking the dark passages around him. Very suddenly, but without any swell of passionate feeling, Bard realized he could die. Right here, within the next few minutes, and probably in agony. His only chance was to stall until Bilbo and Beorn returned, to stay within the boundary of the light at any cost.

Bard licked his bone dry lips and somehow found his voice. "So," Bard said as steadily as he was able, "I take it you're Smaug."

A deep, musical chuckle. Still Bard could not place where the voice was coming from. "My reputation precedes me, I see. And you… you are Thranduil's plaything."

"I don't—"

"No need to lie, little one, I can smell him all over you. How typical that he should dally with his prey. Yet another reason why his corruption must be purged." As Bard's eyes scanned the darkness he thought he could see a patch of shadow that drifted apart from the others, moving with an alien grace and far, far too large. Now it tilted its head, and Bard knew it was looking at him.

"But you… you _are_ an interesting one,” it continued. “Potential there, yes. Perhaps you cannot be faulted that such a mongrel saw it first."

There was still another hour of daylight above. Bilbo and Beorn would be, _must be_ back soon. All Bard had to do was keep talking.

"For a filthy mongrel, it seems he's evaded you for some time," Bard said, struggling to follow the dark figure with his eyes. He wished for a stake, or even better, his bow—though with his back in ribbons, he'd lack the strength to use it. It would have felt good in his hands all the same.

"I have allowed him to continue. For I knew that he would gather other weak-minded ones to him, just as he has done. Easier to exterminate the nest than to pick off the rats one by one."

"How clever of you."

"Do you mock me? It makes little difference. You yourself are nothing more than a mouse the cat has gutted, but not killed. Or has Thranduil convinced you that the pain you feel is not truly there?"

Bard clenched his teeth and did not respond.

"Such anger," Smaug said with a touch of admiration. "And hatred, too. I imagine Thranduil feels it like a warm fire on his face. I'm sure it makes him feel all the stronger, when you submit to him despite it."

"I do not submit—" Bard began to say in spite of himself.

"But you do. You have. You're here. With him, playing his servant. So much potential, and you squander it on one who cannot properly use it. Or perhaps I should say, he squanders it for you."

"You don't know any of us.” Bard’s hand slowly crept to a fist-sized stone beside him. Even a useless weapon felt better in his hand.

"On the contrary. I know all my children, no matter how far they stray from my grace. That is why I must cleanse bloodline. I feel even the weakest of them in my mind, like a poison. But you… for a human, you are strong."

Bard felt rather than heard it creeping closer, edging around the light. "Do you not yearn for _revenge_?" it asked. "To make Thranduil suffer the way he has made you suffer?" It was close now, so close that Bard could make out the yellow glint of eyes in the dark, the slash of a predator’s grin. "Or has he broken you too thoroughly for you to want vengeance?"

Bard said nothing. He lacked the power to do anything to Thranduil without risking the most terrible retaliation. But if he had the power… if he could strike back for all the times Thranduil had made him fear the dark of his own home, how could he resist?

And yet. He remembered waking up to Thranduil's presence beside him, waking from a sleep blessedly devoid of dreams. He deserved revenge, it was true. But he was no longer a person who wanted it.

"I've suffered without justice long before Thranduil crossed my path," Bard said quietly. "I learned to live without it." He was almost surprised to realize that he meant it. He thought, in the far distance, he could hear the sound of other voices growing closer to the pit.

"Hm. Now that is a pity." The shadow was directly in front of Bard now, towering over him higher than any human could stand. The sunlight did not waver. "Still. You will change your mind."

"If I do, you won't be alive to see it," Bard said.

"Ah, bravery. Such an esteemed sentiment among humans. And yet it has never once saved any of you."

The shadow moved.

Bard almost did not understand what he was seeing, not when it raised a hand and reached forward, reached _into the sunlight_ —he saw grey sagging skin that seemed almost covered in scales, long black claws, red veins running beneath the translucent surface like threads of mold. Where the weak sunlight touched it, thin streams of smoke curled, and yet it did not blacken or burn. He saw all of these things very quickly, before he understood what it meant, what was about to happen. Then the hand reached down for his injured leg, took hold of the exposed bone, and pulled.

Pain so immediate and explosive it razed him to the ground. Bard screamed, a sound from so deep it tore out of him like shrapnel. He was being dragged away, out of the light, watching it slide over his waist and his stomach and his chest and head and then it was gone, he was in the dark, and he heard his voice crying out for his children and for his wife and for Thranduil, yes even for him, and whatever was happening to his leg was not over, was going on and on, the bones pushed and pulled and rearranged and then stuffed back under his skin, the noises coming out of his throat, noises he didn't know he could make but was.

He felt Smaug's hand settle on the side of his throat, a gentle, dry pressure.

"I’m afraid it will be slow,” he said.

And then, the pain.


	28. Chapter 28

Tauriel's dreams were dark water. They moved through her in rippling currents, the sense of drifting towards something, or of something drifting towards her—like crocodiles, slow and ancient, their jagged teeth opening up to receive her.

She startled awake into the much more mundane darkness of the caves, with the weight and scent of Kili lying by her side. He did not stir, not even when she slipped out of bed. Whatever had awakened her had touched her senses alone. She could feel it even now—a flicker of something far away, the twitch of a lure.

She padded softly around the bodies curled up on blankets around the floor. There was no sound of breathing, no nighttime stirrings. Her kind slept like the dead, of course. The feeling that had brought Tauriel into wakefulness throbbed as she stepped into the hallway. There was something else as well, a high-pitched emotion in the back of her mind like a ringing in her ears, a hum of anxiety.

She looked for Thranduil.

He wasn't in his bedroom, and neither was Bard. A flicker of her own nervousness spurring her up the ladder into the cabin itself. The sun went down by degrees, a choking haze in her mind. By the time she reached the main room of the cabin she could feel the wrongness in the air, the lingering metallic taste of pain on her tongue, even before she saw Thranduil himself.

He was pacing like a wild animal across the floor, his hands clasped behind his back and the nails digging in to his palms. His lips were slightly parted to reveal the glistening tips of his teeth, ready to snarl. Thranduil’s neck snapped up as soon as she stepped into the room. No warmth in that gaze. Barely even recognition.

Tauriel raised a single eyebrow. "What did he do this time?"

Thranduil let out a quick breath of air that could have been either a sigh or a growl. "He fell. Some kind of sinkhole that led into a separate caves system. Bilbo is tracking down Beorn now so that they can pull him out."

"A sinkhole? How does he even _find_ these catastrophes?" Thranduil did not so much as crack a smile. At once Tauriel grew more sober. "He's hurt, isn't he?"

"His leg is broken. I felt his pain."

Tauriel tilted her head, considering. She knew now what had awakened her. If Thranduil's bond with Bard was strong enough that even _she_ could feel the human's distress, what did that mean for the three of them?

In Thranduil’s current state of agitation he was in no position to speculate with her.

"There's daylight still,” she reminded him. “The other humans will pull him out, and you can give him a stern talking to about being more careful with his delicate human carapace, and we’ll all sign his cast."

Thranduil glanced at her sharply. "Surviving the fall is no guarantee of his safety. Bard's injuries will make him helpless in the coming battle."

"To be fair, he was already fairly helpless to begin with."

" _Tauriel_ —"

"Alright, alright.” She stepped forward to clasp his arm. “We’ll deal with that as it comes. For now, Bard is the least difficult of all our problems to solve."

Thranduil shook his head as if trying to clear it, and dragged his fingers over his scalp. "That's not all it is," he said, seemingly to himself. "There is something _wrong_. I can feel it."

"The human’s pain is muddling you."

"I can tell the difference between my emotions and his!" Thranduil snapped with surprising venom.

Tauriel was not certain whether to apologize or insist that she was right, when suddenly Thranduil's head turned as sharply as if someone had called his name. His eyes bored through the door, every muscle in his body going suddenly tense. She could imagine his hackles slowly rising. The hair on her own neck began to prickle.

"Thranduil?" He did not respond to her call. She took a step closer, feeling the hum in the back of her head building like a swarm of insects. She heard something that wasn't there, a kind of slithering, leathery sound. And then—

_A voice?_

The crescendo of foreign terror barreling through Tauriel’s mind nearly brought her to her knees. The fear seized around her like an electrical current, jumping from Bard to Thranduil and thent o her. For a single instant, she could taste the human’s bitter blood. By the time she came back to herself, Thranduil had silently lunged across the room and undone half the locks on the door.

Tauriel stared, uncomprehending, for one crucial second—the last of the locks fell open under his hands. Only as he reached for the doorknob did Tauriel realize what he intended to do. This time, the horror was all her own.

" _Stop_!" she cried, slamming into Thranduil's back and trying to pin his arms down. "It's still daylight! You'll kill us both!"

Thranduil did not hear her. She could sense nothing from his mind but a maelstrom. His strength was greater than hers, yet she held on with every fiber of her being; she didn't see the elbow until it was jabbed into her gut, driving her backwards, and Thranduil dove for the door handle again—

A sudden knife-swipe of bright agony cut through Tauriel's eyes, so white it was nothing but a void before her, around her, consuming her. She felt the skin on her face begin to bubble and scarcely heard her own shriek. Thought burned away. The last thing she could do, the last choice she was capable of making, was to bend every instinct backwards and push _towards_ the light, the brightness that filled her with the warmth of fresh blood, the stupor of it, even as it ate her alive—

The momentum of her body slamming into Thranduil’s shoved the door shut again. All at once the brightness was gone, the terror and agony and the distinct feeling that she had _wanted_ to burn. She sagged, tremors moving through her body as her tissue began to re-knit itself—but with a flash of horror, she realized Thranduil wasn't done. He reached one red-blistered hand for the doorknob again, shrugging off Tauriel's struggles to stop him.

“Bard,” he groaned. He was going to open it again, and this time—

At once there was a shout from behind them, and Tauriel felt hands surge past her and take hold of Thranduil with the strength of many, pulling him away from the door that would have ended them all. As the rest of Thorin’s party began wrestling him to the floor Thranduil began shouting like a madman, twisting and lashing out with centuries of conserved strength.

" _Please, no, oh god, stop, please_ —" The words were Bard’s, echoing through Thranduil’s voice. From her place leaning against the door Tauriel felt the pit of her stomach fall. She could feel it too—a flutter of something, the echo of a heartbeat, a pulsing fringe of pain. It was dizzying, almost like the rush of pleasure, except it twisted her stomach like nausea.

"It's Bard," she tried to say over the cacophony, hardly feeling the hands that reached up to steady her. "Something's happened—I think—I think he's dying—"

And then, she felt the break.

Her back arched against the wood of the door, a bolt of agony through her chest. And waiting on the other side—emptiness. Thranduil, the cabin, all of it was gone. There was only a vast silence, as large and featureless as pack ice deep in the arctic winter, the stillness of it, the utter nothing, and at the end of it, waiting, was—

A split second later it was over. She slumped further down the door, saved from falling only by a pair of hands steadying her shoulders. Thranduil fell silent. She felt as if her spine had been snapped, and she could feel it hanging in two separate pieces inside of her.

"Tauriel? What's happened?" The fear in Kili's voice was what brought her back to herself.  His hands tightened, keeping her upright. She blinked into his face and forced the shattered pieces of her consciousness into something that could produce words.

"It's Bard," she said hoarsely. "I think… I…."

She turned to Thranduil. He was totally still, and she couldn’t see his face. Tauriel pushed Kili aside and fell to her knees by her sire’s head. He wasn't dead. She could still feel him in her mind, the way she had ever since the day of her second birth. But the snap—that moment of total nothingness—she had never felt before.

There were no more faint stirrings of pain in her mind. She had an idea of why that might be.

"Bard was in trouble," she said. "Thranduil sensed it, before…"

Kili looked at her blankly. “ _Was_?”

A sharp cough made her words stop short. She looked to see Balin standing in the entrance to the hallway with Bard’s three children at his side, eyes still dark and puffy with sleep.

"Where's Da?" the boy demanded. His tone was undercut by the waver in his voice. Baling stepped forward and lay a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"Bilbo and Beorn are out there right now, doing whatever they can," he said. "The best thing we can do is stay inside where it's safe and wait for them to come back."

Immediately the two older children began to argue. They wanted to go out and look for him themselves; irrational, but hardly surprising. Kili drew her aside with a hand on her elbow, out of earshot of all the humans. Tauriel walked as if the floor had been greased. Her face still seared where the sun had touched it.

"Could the human's death trigger…" Kili nodded toward where the others were sitting around Thranduil’s prone form. His face was still marked by daylight. He needed blood, something to dilute Bard’s presence poisoning his veins.

"It might," Tauriel said. "Their bond was unnaturally strong; I don’t know when Thranduil would have fed from anyone else. But he must have known that Bard's death was a possibility. He should have prepared."

"Then what is this?"

Tauriel's lips tightened. "I don't know, Kili. Smaug knew that Bard was Thranduil’s; maybe he did something."

"Like what?"

"I have no idea!" Tauriel turned away to press her fingers against the sockets of her eyes, like the mounting pain and fear was something she could crush. Smaug’s attack was already underway. They were being picked off, one by one.

She looked up to see Thorin deep in hurried conversation with Balin, looking between Thranduil and the children with a look Tauriel was shocked to identify as _worry_.

"Get him on the couch," Thorin said. "How long have Bilbo and Beorn been gone for?"

"Beorn's been out there all day," Ori said softly. "Bilbo left not fifteen minutes ago to bring him back."

Once more Thorin glanced at the children. At once she knew he was going to ask one of them to go out. There were no other humans left, no one else who could suffer the sunlight unscathed. Their faces were pale, rigid with fear that hadn't yet bloomed into understanding. Watching them was like seeing a match drop onto dry grass, seconds away from a conflagration.

And yet Tauriel was not at all surprised when Sigrid stepped forward, her eyes dark and her hands clenched in front of her. "I'll go," she said in a small voice. "I'll look for them."

Bard was not there to cry out against sending his child into the center of certain danger. And so Thorin only nodded, and guided the rest back as Sigrid stepped up to the door. Tauriel could smell the fear that came off her like waves of dizzying smoke, and yet Sigrid only paused to turn around and lock eyes with her siblings, sending them a silent promise that Tauriel could easily imagine: _I'll find him. I'll bring him back._

Foolish hope. Sigrid sported a grim smile all the same. It struck Tauriel that the girl would make an exquisite vampire.

She caught Sigrid's arm as she passed, and slid a stake into her waiting hand. The warmth of Sigrid's skin raced against Tauriel’s fingers. "You might need this."

"I have my own."

Tauriel let her go, the stake still pressed into Sigrid's palm. "Take it anyways."

Sigrid only hesitated for a moment before nodding and tightening her grip. She laid her hand on the door knob as everyone edged back into the shadows, looking away until the sizzle of nearby sunlight was locked away once more.

They waited for an hour before the three humans returned. Tauriel spent most of that time sitting on the floor near the couch where they'd laid Thranduil down. He sprawled as if all the weight of his body was nothing but dead meat, eyes open and unseeing, surrounded by a swath of cooked flesh.  

Bard had done this, as surely as if he’d walked up and stuck a stake in Thranduil himself. A fresh wave of hatred rose at the thought, but it was an empty and aimless feeling. At some point Kili pressed a bag of blood into her hands, and she drank it only to quell the pain in her face. Across the room, the youngest child sniffled as Bain spoke gently to her. They had gathered near the couch at Thranduil’s feet, clinging to the evil they knew—or maybe just frightened. Tauriel supposed Thranduil would want her to comfort them, but she didn’t know how. So she merely sat, near them but not with them, and waited for the door to open again.

When it did, it was all Tauriel could do not to surge forward the second the light was gone. And yet, she had heard from the footsteps outside: there were only three people returning, and when her eyes adjusted to the fresh darkness, she saw that Bard was not among them.

Bilbo stepped forward with his arm fastened close around Sigrid's shoulders. Her expression teetered on the edge of a precipice. Whatever strength Tauriel had seen in her before had been utterly consumed. Bilbo guided her to the table and helped her sit down heavily in a chair, her eyes slightly glazed.

"We looked for as long as we could," Beorn said. "He wasn't in the sinkhole. We think he's been taken. There was… a lot of blood."

"What are you saying?" Bain cried, leaping to his feet. "You just left him down there? We have to go after them!"

Beorn looked down at him with tired eyes. "The sun's going down, boy.  We're out of time."

"No! We have to hurry, if we leave now—"

"We can't, Bain." With Bilbo’s arm around her shoulders, Sigrid looked hunched, as if she was being borne down under a terrible weight. "There's nothing we can do."

Bain’s face went slack with shock. Tauriel could see him struggling against the realization he desperately didn’t want, the alternatives springing up in the twist of his mouth, the pinching of his brows. "Da would never have abandoned us!" he cried. "He would have come for any of us, no matter the risk."

"You're right," Sigrid said, her voice thick and raw. "And he also would never have wanted any of us to sacrifice our lives for no reason."

"No reason? We can still—"

"He's gone, Bain!" Sigrid cried. The silence ringing after her voice was deafening. She covered her face with her hands, and began to sob. The others soon joined her. Bilbo moved in closer, trying to console them, but Tauriel drew away; there was a weight in her chest, a lump that Thranduil’s still, unresponsive face made all the heavier. She couldn’t stay. Not even for his sake.

She slipped beneath the earth to prepare for the coming night.

 

* * *

 

In the predawn hours, the perimeter was quiet. Tauriel stood on the porch; the only light came from the stars. There were so many of them, a swarm of cold pinpricks gathering over the treetops. By their illumination she could see the sentries shifting between the trees, waiting for an attack which could come in seconds or in days.

She could also see the small form slumped on the edge of the porch, outlined in that faint grey light. The heat coming off her skin drew Tauriel forward like a warm fire against the night. The girl had wandered out here over an hour ago, and showed no sign of moving.

Tauriel stepped up behind her. “You should go back inside.” Sigrid did not respond. Tauriel was relieved to see she had stopped crying. Thranduil was inside, awake but not quite there, his eyes dissecting the empty corners and walls until Tauriel gave up on trying to talk to him. “Smaug won’t attack tonight,” Thorin had said with quiet certainty. But they sent the sentries out all the same.

One of them drifted nearer to the house as Tauriel hesitated; she recognized Bofur’s ever-present hat, and saw the glint of his eyes darting from Sigrid to her. “We’re good here,” Tauriel told him. “I can handle this.”

Bofur raised his eyebrows without comment. Only when he had slipped back into the shadows did Sigrid raise her head again.

“Are you going to make me go?” she asked.

In answer, Tauriel sat down beside her.

Sigrid stared into the woods blindly, her eyesight too stunted to catch the passing shadows of the patrols. Tauriel could feel her shiver, but the girl made no move to get up. Tauriel found herself measuring the time by the breaths that misted over Sigrid’s lips, the weary thud of her heart. She wanted to draw away from this human’s anguish, and yet she stayed. Thranduil would have wanted her to.

“I don’t understand,” Sigrid whispered. “I thought I’d done everything right. That everything would… that I…”

Her words petered out like a spent faucet. Tauriel could see the silent tears that ran down her cheeks, smell the salt of them. On impulse she reached out to brush them away, and felt their warmth tingling on her fingertips. “That’s how it always happens,” Tauriel said as kindly as she could. “It’s not your fault.”

“I don’t care.”

Tauriel bit her tongue. Humans required tenderness, warmth. All Tauriel knew how to do was drink it out of them. But with Bard gone, with Thranduil adrift, there was no one else to offer more. So Tauriel gently wrapped an arm around Sigrid’s shoulder, the way she’d seen Bard do so many times.

For a moment she thought Sigrid was about to push her away—but then her shoulders slumped, and she leaned into Tauriel’s weight with a quiet sniffle, fitting the top of her head against Tauriel’s neck. The warmth and contact was so different from the frantic beating struggle of the kill. Tauriel felt her own tension begin to drain away as she pressed her cheek to the top of Sigrid’s head, and shot a glare into the darkness in case any of the sentries were watching.

But Tauriel’s body could offer Sigrid no warmth, and in the distance clouds were gathering. Soon they would not have starlight. When Sigrid’s shivering threatened to shake her apart, Tauriel carefully straightened up. “Let’s go inside.”

This time, Sigrid did not argue. She slowly rose, with Tauriel’s help compensating for her stiff muscles. Slowly, they turned back to the door. Darkness squatted inside, waiting for them to meet it. Tauriel took the first step forward.

“ _Wait_ …”

The voice was hoarse, a rasp like rusty metal. It had come from the woods. Sigrid’s back went rigid under Tauriel’s arm.

“Did you hear that?” Sigrid whispered, her voice painfully loud in the flat air.

“Be quiet,” Tauriel hissed. Her eyes swept the trees. She saw no movement—not even the pacing of a sentry. Surely they should have heard it too?

Sigrid was tugging at her now, struggling to move closer to the edge of the porch, craning her neck to see.

Tauriel listened. In the distance, she heard a faint cough. “…Sigrid?”

This time, the voice was unmistakable.

“Da?” Sigrid cried, her voice shattering the dark glass of the night. Tauriel was not ready for how quickly the girl moved—in an instant she had torn out of Tauriel’s grip and bolted towards the tree line, her bare feet slapping the damp grass. “Da, I’m here!”

“Sigrid, wait!” Tauriel cried, lunging after her—and yet, she’d heard it too. _He wasn’t dead_. Was that possible? The image leapt through her mind, bright and electric: Thranduil looking up as she guided Bard back through the door, battered and bleeding but _alive_. She thought of how Thranduil would smile. How the haze would lift from his eyes. How he would look to _her_ in gratitude.

She almost wasn’t fast enough.

Sigrid was sprinting for the edge of the trees, calling as she did. Tauriel was on her heels, but hesitated—almost let her go—but then she saw the shadow bulging up out of the column of a tree, stepping out from behind it, and at once her instincts screamed _stop_ , and she reached out to seize Sigrid’s arm—

The blow whistled through the air in front of both of their faces, a blur of motion so quick Tauriel heard more than she saw. She yanked Sigrid backwards with her, nearly tripping over both their feet as she went—even now the girl was fighting her, nails digging into Tauriel’s arm as if she could break it apart like clay.

“Sigrid, stop!” she cried, shaking the girl hard. “It’s not him! It’s not—”

The figure stepped out of the trees, and Tauriel’s voice froze in her throat.

“Sig,” Bard said, spreading his hands wide. “It’s okay. I’m here.” There was hesitation on his face, a sort of shaky fear in the hollows of his eyes. Sigrid went utterly still in Tauriel’s arms. The faint light threw shadows over Bard’s face, dragging a wedge of darkness over his neck. Tauriel found her eyes drawn back to it, peering into the wrongness that darkness kept hidden.

“Please,” he said, and coughed again. He took a stumbling step forward, and Tauriel yanked Sigrid a step back. “I managed to get away, but… I’m hurt, Sig. I need help.”

Sigrid began fighting in earnest then, twisting so hard Tauriel wasn’t sure she could hold her without doing lasting damage. “Let me go,” she said through fresh tears. “Da…”

“Wait,” Tauriel hissed in her ear. “Something isn’t right—”

Bard’s eyes snapped to hers. “What are you doing, Tauriel?” he croaked. “We have to get inside. Smaug’s forces are already on their way.” This time when Bard took another step, Tauriel didn’t pull back. She could see him a little more clearly now, the strange way he was favoring one leg without wincing, without showing any pain at all.

“How did you escape?” Tauriel demanded.

“Why does it matter?” Sigrid cried. “Get off of me! Let me help him!”

“It’s okay,” Bard said, a weak smile on his lips. Another shuffling step. His hands raised as if in placation. “She’s right to be nervous, darling. But everything is okay now. We’re together. Just like I said.”

Tauriel felt Sigrid nodding helplessly, caught in her father’s words like a net. Tauriel couldn’t explain her own prickling instincts, the question she couldn’t ignore: _where were the sentries?_ Bard took one more step forward. He was scarcely a few paces away. There was no trick, no mistaking—it _was_ him. Tauriel let her grip loosen ever so slightly. Seeing that, Bard’s smile widened. Too wide.

“Can we go inside?”

On pure instinct, Tauriel clamped her hand over Sigrid’s mouth before she could speak the words. Tauriel knew, then. She stared at Bard, Sigrid’s struggles thudding against her body. “Don’t invite him in,” she hissed into Sigrid’s ear, and only then did the girl go still.

Bard stared at Sigrid, his smile growing wider and wider until it seemed nothing more than a slash of darkness, a rind of teeth. “Well,” he said, in a voice that was his voice, or what was left of it when all the warmth and inflection had been vacuumed out of it.  “It was worth a try.”

A cold, bitter smile spread across Tauriel’s lips. It twitched around her canines into a snarl.

“What’s wrong, Sigrid?” Bard asked, raising his arms as if to invite her into an embrace. “Won’t you come give your dad a hug?”

Tauriel felt Sigrid whimper. Bard’s arms slowly fell to his side. The faint tremor in his limbs and the little human movements of his hands were no longer necessary. He stood as motionless as the trees behind him, except for the slow, canine tilt of his head.

“I could kill you both, you know. It would be easy.”

“Not likely,” Tauriel said. She was trying to remember how far it was back to the house, how quickly she could make it with Sigrid in tow—or how quickly she could make it if she threw Sigrid to the ground and ran alone. With a lurch in her stomach, Tauriel realized that was not an option. She couldn’t abandon Sigrid now.

Bard laughed as if he could see straight through to her thoughts. “You don’t think so? Your watchdogs were toothless. Smaug’s power is my power now.”

“So it’s down to ‘my sire can beat up your sire’ now, is it?” It shouldn’t have been possible for any fresh-made fledgling to kill an experienced vampire. But if Smaug had sired him… she thought of how quickly Thranduil had been shattered, the opening void of cold he had described. If she took a step backwards, would Bard attack?

“Oh, he can,” Bard said. “And he will. Tomorrow night, any left in these woods will belong to him. He’s going to have _fun_ with you. And so am I.”

“Da,” Sigrid said, her voice like the cry of a dying animal. “Da, you have to fight it…”

“Shh, Sig,” Bard said, putting on his old human voice like a grotesque theater mask. “It’s not that I _can’t_ fight it. It’s that I don’t want to.”

“This isn’t you,” Sigrid whispered.

“It is now.” Bard rolled his shoulders as if they were free of a heavy weight. “Do you know what a _relief_ it was? To finally stop caring? To realize it didn’t matter if you, and Bain, and sweet little Tilda, all had your throats slit right in front of me? That I could _want_ it to happen?”

Sigrid choked down a sob. “Don’t listen,” Tauriel whispered. “That’s Smaug talking.”

Bard’s manic grin disappeared. His dark eyes focused on Tauriel. “Is it?” he hissed. “Or is it the things that were always there, pushed down deeper than I could ever let myself feel? I feel them now. God, I feel them. Smaug… he _freed_ me.” Bard raised a hand to his throat, tilted his head back. The starlight played over the skin of his throat, or the place where skin should have been. It opened like a second mouth, twisted with scars like grey worms, a gaping maw from ear to ear.

Sigrid screamed then, and Tauriel did not even think of stopping her. She turned and dragged them both towards the house, not caring whether Bard’s hands were reaching for them now. She heard him laughing, somewhere behind them as they stumbled up onto the porch.

“Tomorrow night,” he called. “I’m coming for Thranduil first. Make sure he knows that.”

Tauriel flung the door open and pulled Sigrid inside. There were no lights on as she slammed it shut behind them. Already there was the sound of footsteps rushing up from below, following the screams that still tore from Sigrid’s throat. Tauriel slid down the door, holding Sigrid to her, and waited for them to come.

 

* * *

 

The room was full within an hour, everyone who wasn’t assigned to a post gathered in the room. They’d sent out a large scouting group to look for the sentries. Bofur had been clobbered over the back of the head, and was now largely unharmed; Bifur was still missing. Many of the Durins were not meeting each other’s eyes.

Tauriel sat at the table, Sigrid across from her. The girl’s head was bowed as if her neck couldn’t support it. Tauriel thought if she reached out to touch her Sigrid might crumble like ash. Bain sat in a chair pulled up beside her, Tilda in his lap. Both of them looked dazed. At the table’s head Thorin leaned on the wood and fixing Tauriel with a steady, searching gaze.

“Are you sure?” he asked, speaking each word with care.

“For the last time: I know what I saw.” Tauriel was too exhausted to lace her words with the bitterness they deserved. “He said tomorrow night. That’s when Smaug is going to attack.”

A quiet murmur went through the room. "Well," Bilbo said, taking his glasses off to clean them with shaking hands. "I'd say things just got very bad indeed."

"I don't understand." Bain stepped forward, his eyes darting from face to face with a nervous energy Tauriel was sorry to identify as hope. "Isn't this good? I mean… Da’s still alive!" A hesitant, unconscious smile warped his face. "Doesn't this mean we can help him? Turn him back somehow?"

Bilbo took a slow breath. "It's bad for two reasons. Firstly, the crux of our plan hinged on the fact that Smaug planned to choose a human victim—and on us using that as our chance to get him to drink the serum. If he’s turned Bard, we’ve lost our window.”

When Bilbo hesitated, Thorin straightened up. “Secondly, by now Smaug know every trap and trick we had lying in wait for him. Every last one."

"How?" Bain asked hoarsely.

Bilbo looked at her with pity in his eyes. "Because your father would have told him"

"He would never!" Bain cried.

"He wouldn't have a choice." Bilbo looked away. "When a person is turned, they aren't the same anymore. They become like the sire that turned them. And in your father's case, Smaug's influence… with that kind of power, your father’s self would have been obliterated."

"Then we have to turn him back," Bain said, though his voice was crumpling into something small and battered. "There must be a way."

“There is no way.” The voice was quiet, so quiet it was almost there—and yet Tauriel’s head snapped to it like a dog heeding a whistle. Thranduil was sitting up on the couch where they had left him, his face haggard, his hair hanging limp around his face. His eyes were locked on Bain with a fevered intensity. Tauriel leapt forward as he slowly rose to his feet. On impulse she reached out to steady him; he waved her away. The tremor in his hand did not escape her attention. His face had begun to heal, but the sunlight had left its mark.

Bain was staring right back at him, blinking too often, anger in the set of his jaw. “There has to be,” he repeated stubbornly. “If we kill Smaug—if we do that, won’t that fix him?”

“A popular myth,” Thranduil said dully. “Killing a vampire’s sire has no effect on the fledglings.”

“Well there has to be a ritual, or a _spell_ , something—“

“Why?” Thranduil’s voice rang out sharply in the small room. “Why must that be? Because it happens that way in your books? Because whenever the hero faces the ultimate darkness, they must have a path back to the light? Because you _want_ it to be true? Do you think that I do not? Your father is _dead_.”

Tilda began to sniffle again, very gently, in the way of a child who has few enough tears left to cry but will cry them all the same. Bain pulled her tighter to himself, his own eyes on the brink of overflowing. Thranduil’s face was written with rage and pain, but a moment later he turned away.

“And how do we know you’re not lying?” Bain demanded hoarsely. “That this isn’t exactly what you wanted? Our father made just like _you_. Of course you wouldn’t do anything to help him.”

Tauriel’s hands balled into fists as she tensed for the blow to fall. Yet Thranduil did not turn to face the boy again, facing away with his shoulders hunched, his head hanging. “I will do what I can for your father,” he said. “Whether you believe me or not.”

Bain laughed, a harsh, gagging sound. “One thing that makes me feel better,” he said bitterly. “If he’s coming for us, he’s coming for _you_.”

Without another word Bain stood, picking his younger sister up like a child much younger than she was. “Come on, Sig,” he said. Sigrid made no response. She simply sat very still, her eyes down and her hands clasped loosely in front of her, as if she had fallen asleep at the table. Bain’s face contorted for one brief moment before he turned away. He headed for the basement, a private place to shed their tears.

“Thranduil is right.” Bilbo’s voice was quiet, and he did not meet Sigrid’s gaze. “Our only hope was getting Smaug to ingest the serum when he turned one of us. Without it, he’s virtually indestructible.”

“What about injecting it directly?” Ori piped up.

“It would work in theory,” Bilbo said with a sigh, “but by the time you’d get close enough to use it…”

“The serum is no longer our main concern,” Thorin said. “If we don’t devote all our energy to rethinking our defenses, by this time tomorrow we’ll all be dead. The traps and mines will be useless. Bard knew all their locations. We’d best dismantle them from the woods and re-erect them near the house; make a boundary they cannot cross without paying dearly." He turned to Dwalin. “What weapons do we have?”

"Same as we had last night, plus some extra stakes," Dwalin said.

"Not enough," Thorin said. "Take this place apart, find anything you can use to kill. Shore up every entrance, get the water ready—if he tries to burn us out we go into the caves. Everyone remember their positions?" There was a flurry of frantic nods. Thorin regarded them all with a look of hard pride that even Tauriel was not immune to. "Then let's show them why they should never have come crawling after us! Du bekar!"

"Du bekar!" The others  cried, and the cabin erupted into a flurry of activity as everyone rushed off to their respective tasks. There were only two figures that remained utterly still among the chaos—Sigrid, staring at the wood of the table with a blank gaze, and Thranduil. He remained where he had stood before, crumpled in on himself, silent. Tauriel stepped up to him and touched his arm, gently, ready to spring back if he lashed out. He did not seem to feel it; his eyes stared straight ahead, until she stepped in front of him and pressed a palm to his cheek.

His eyes slid closed again, and for a moment Tauriel thought he had gone away again. But then his lips parted, and he spoke.

"I'm fine, Tauriel.” It was such a blatant lie that Tauriel did not know how to dispute it. Whatever he had felt through Bard had undone him like a tangle of string sliced by a dagger. And yet Tauriel knew it wasn't just the echo of whatever pain and terror Smaug had inflicted. Thranduil was… grieving.

“I need you to speak with Sigrid,” he said quietly.

Tauriel glanced at Sigrid behind them. She still had not moved "I do not think she wants to speak with _me_."

"You must." Thranduil’s eyes seized on her. The fury was in them still, the rage and grief twined into one, but it was buried beneath a dull haze of exhaustion. "You know what Bard will do next," he said quietly.

At once, Tauriel felt a flash of dry heat in her throat. "You think he'll come after his children."

"He will be drawn to them the way he always was in life. But when he finds them, he _will_ kill them. Smaug will make sure of that."

"Then what can we do?"

"Warn them."

" _Warn them_? That their own father is going to try to kill them? They can't defend themselves against one of our kind, Thranduil, no matter how highly you think of them."

"I agree with you. If Bard gets his children alone, no amount of warning or training could save them. What we need to do is ensure that the _children_ don't let that happen.” He stared into her eyes. “Think about it, Tauriel. They want so badly for him to still be alive. If they heard his voice asking them to step past every safeguard and come to him, it would be nearly impossible to resist. Hope is a powerful weapon, and Smaug will use it against us."

Tauriel's mouth twisted. "And so you plan to destroy that hope."

He looked away. “We must.”

"Then I stand corrected. Perhaps there is some of your old ruthlessness left in you after all."

"It isn't ruthlessness, Tauriel.” Thranduil stared at the shuttered windows, blank-faced. “It's mercy." Without another word, he turned and began to walk to the basement door.

"Thranduil," Tauriel called. She was almost surprised when he stopped. "What will you do?"

"I'm going to find Bard's bow, and make sure I  can use it." He looked down. "It’s what he would have wanted."

Tauriel did not stop him again. There was nothing left to do but turn to Sigrid, a slumped and mute figure at the kitchen table, a receptacle for pain. She stopped before the girl, almost reaching out, but stopping at the last moment. "We need to talk.”

Sigrid met her eyes like one already dead, but she did not argue as Tauriel led her to the room at the end of the hall. The room was piled with crates, shelves with canned goods, a large squat refrigerator that hummed in the corner. As soon as the door closed Sigrid slumped against it, letting her head fall forward and her hair hide her face. Tauriel could hear her breathing, slow, measured gasps for air. She could practically count along with each measured inhale: one, two, three, four, exhale…

“Sigrid,” Tauriel said. “There are things you have to hear. Things about your father.”

Sigrid’s head twisted away. She rose a hand to touch her temple as if something inside of it were boring its way out. “Must we do this now?” she whispered. “I can’t. I can’t think about—”

“Would you like to die?” Tauriel said without feeling. “Would you like your siblings to die?”

Sigrid’s lips became a thin line, but whatever arguments she had died on her tongue. A moment later Sigrid shook her head, the  brown curtain of her hair swaying.

Tauriel waited a little longer, searching for the right words that wouldn't seem to come. "There is a possibility," she began slowly, "a risk, that Thranduil asked me to acknowledge. A chance that your father might come looking for you and your siblings."

A possibility. A risk. A chance. Tauriel hated how she found herself hedging, digging a knife in rather than making it quick. _Your father wants to kill you_ , she imagined herself saying. _He's going to drink your blood because it will feel like the only thing that can ease his pain_.

Sigrid raised her head to stare at her blankly. "Da might… he might come back?" The hope in her voice was palatable.

"Not like that," Tauriel said. "Your father is gone, Sigrid. All that’s left is an echo, a series of dead nerves, still firing. The instinct to find his children is still there. But when he finds you, his _new_ instincts will take over. Blood calls to blood. Take it from one who knows."

Sigrid’s mouth tightened. “He wouldn’t hurt us.”

“Your father wouldn’t,” Tauriel agreed. All this time her voice remained flat and colorless. “But though he may take a similar shape, the thing that is coming for you is not Bard.  It will have his memories, his face, his mind. But everything that you might have ever known him by: his kindness, his dedication, his humanity—all those things have been pulled out of him, one by one, and replaced with nothing but hunger.”

Sigrid swallowed. Tauriel could hear the dry planes of her throat click together. "I don't believe you. Da couldn’t, not even like this—we just need to try and get through to him—

Tauriel could move very quickly when she wanted to. Before Sigrid's words had finished leaving her mouth Tauriel darted forward, slid a hand up under her chin, and had her pinned to the door. Hard enough to bruise, perhaps; hard enough that Sigrid couldn't breathe. The girl's eyes went wide and her hands clawed at Tauriel’s grip. Tauriel watched her struggles dispassionately.

"I'm doing this because, beyond my better judgement, I want to help you survive," she said blankly. "I find you enjoyable. I see you as more than a meal. And yet at this very moment, and at every moment before that, there is a significant part of me that wants to shove my face up against your carotid artery and rip it open with my teeth."

Sigrid's face was turning red. Tauriel did not allow a single sound to slip past her throat. "Can you imagine what it feels like to have your throat slit?" Tauriel whispered. "I feel it, every time I feed. There’s a bright red burst of pain, more pain than you thought possible, and the feeling of a thick rope being dragged out of your neck; and your body gets heavy, and your brain gets slow—just as I imagine yours is right now."

Tauriel leaned forward. She was neither lying nor exaggerating when she said she wanted to drink Sigrid's blood. The heat of her, so close and so like Tauriel's other kills, was a temptation she found difficult to want to resist. "That's what's going to happen to you if you don't believe me. If you let Bard get to you. He will kill you, eat you, and your brother and sister will be next. So it's your choice."

Without another word Tauriel let Sigrid go.

The girl doubled over, gagging with her hands pressed to her throat. She would be fine—Tauriel had been careful. And yet the catch in her breath wasn’t just from lack of air, and Tauriel saw tears falling from behind Sigrid's hair and making circles in the dust on the floor.

For a moment Tauriel simply stood and watched. It struck her in a distant way that she may have gone too far—that she certainly, absolutely had gone too far. She tried to think of what Thranduil would want her to do, twisting her own instincts to meet the crumpled human in front of her. Or what Bard would have done, faced with a member of his family falling apart. That, at least, was a clearer path.

Stepping forward, she hesitantly reached out and let her hand rest gently on the top of Sigrid's head, a touch that Sigrid made no effort to push away. Her fingers scarcely rested on her scalp, Tauriel's hesitance to touch and comfort stopping her from giving more.

"I'm sorry," Tauriel said, and the words were not her own, but she found them easy to say.

She felt Sigrid shivering beneath her, the last of her sobs choked out on her lips. Her hair was soft and warm, and Tauriel felt a tenderness that almost made her recoil. She wondered if Sigrid could feel Thranduil eddying at the edge of her consciousness the way Tauriel could feel Bard. They were similar in that way, bystanders dragged into their sires’ war.

Sigrid raised a hand to wipe her face, snuffling wetly. “Why are you telling me this?”

"Talk to your siblings," Tauriel said. Her mouth twisted with a hint of irony. “You can see why I thought it best not to do so myself.”

At last, Sigrid quieted. Tauriel offered her a hand. Sigrid took it without meeting Tauriel's eyes, allowing herself to be pulled to her feet. She kept wiping at her face like she was trying to clean off something oily. She met Tauriel’s eyes again without flinching. “Thranduil is going to kill him, isn’t he?”

Tauriel blinked. Sigrid had spoken of her father's murder on a single breath, as if knowing she couldn't get it out otherwise. And yet her jaw stayed firm, her eyes red but dry.

In the face of that steel Tauriel could not offer a more comfortable lie. "He has no other option."

"Yes you do. I say you do." The way the light slid over her face and pooled under her eyes made her seem something wild, yellow light catching in her blank eyes. Tauriel felt a shiver run up and down her spine, a root of fear and anticipation curling within her instincts. She recognized the look of a hunter.

“What about the serum?” Tears had washed her throat raw, but there was no sadness in it. Sigrid’s grief had burned it out of her. What was left was only the hard, cold things that grief couldn’t consume, that it could only blacken and then turn red-hot.

“What about it?” Tauriel asked.

Sigrid began to pace, treading over the dust that moments before had been cratered with her tears. Something had caught inside of her, a flare of a match, a person pushed just a little too far. "What if we used it on Bard?”

Tauriel stared at her blankly. "It won’t cure him, Sigrid.”

Her jaw tightened. “It doesn’t need to. Bilbo said the serum worked by cutting off Smaug’s connection with the rest of his kind. Wouldn’t it do the same to Da?”

“You mean cut him off from Smaug’s influence.” Tauriel tilted her head. “Interesting.”

Sigrid crossed her arms over her chest. "Using it on Smaug would be a long shot; using it on Da would be easy You said yourself, he's going to try to come after us. All we need to do is let him get close enough to use the serum."

"You do understand that 'close enough' would mean him already killing you?" Tauriel snapped.

“Everyone seems to think we’re all going to die anyway.”

Tauriel shook her head stubbornly. "It won't work. And even if it did, what good would it do?"

"Think about it. You have little to no chance of using it on Smaug directly. But if you used it on Da—if you could break the connection, even for a second—you _know_ he would turn on Smaug at the first possible opportunity.” Sigrid’s eyes were bright, feverish. “All he needs is a window. Smaug won’t be expecting an attack from one of his own.”

Tauriel probed at a sharp canine with her tongue, deep in thought. "We have no idea what the effect of the serum will be. He was turned less than twenty-four hours ago; the change is still taking place. Cutting him off from its source could kill him truly.”

Sigrid’s fists were tight by her side. She didn’t meet Tauriel’s eyes. “Da would rather be dead than what he is now. I’m sure of it.”

Tauriel almost laughed. “Very well. If this is going to work, we can't tell the others.  Not even your siblings. Not even Thranduil."

"I suppose they’d try to stop us."

"For good reason. This plan is insane."

Sigrid raised an eyebrow. “So you think it might work?”

Tauriel stared at the human before her, faintly baffled. "You know, if you were one of my kind, I would probably be terrified of you."

Sigrid's smile was without humor. "Let's hope we never have to find out first hand." She turned back to the door. Her eyes grew sad. "I'll go talk to Bain and Tilda. When the time comes, you’ll need to serum off Bilbo. Leave the rest to me.”

She slipped from the dark room and left Tauriel alone. She stood quietly a moment, feeling the dust against her skin, the sensation of the distant sun growing darker. There was no doubt in Tauriel’s mind that part of Sigrid believed she could still get her father back. The same part which believed that somehow all of them would survive this. It was a hopeless kind of hope, one which would crumble when handled too roughly. Thranduil had instructed her to destroy it. But such a small hope did not seem so bad, when she saw the fire it started in Sigrid’s eyes. If it was all that allowed them to die with pride and fury, then Tauriel couldn’t bring herself to snuff it out.

Tauriel closed her eyes. She'd wait for her last sunset.

And then, she would hunt.


	29. Chapter 29

The bed was cold. Thranduil had lain in it for hours as he let the long hours of day slip away. He could have remained there for an eternity, and the sheets would never warm. The cold caused him no discomfort. It was the emptiness which gnawed at him when his hands wandered to the smooth blanket beside him— the place where a warmer body should have been.  

The white sheets were stark against the darkness, floating like an island, a pale boat. Thranduil let one foot drag in the shadows beside the bed, imagining cold water rising over his toes; as if he could simply drift away. He tried not to think about the fact that he could still smell Bard’s sweat on the sheets, could still remember exactly how he’d looked spread over them. Thranduil closed his eyes, and the darkness was the same.

His fingers slid over the rough, cool sheets, empty until they reached the wooden grip of the bow lying in bed beside him. Thranduil did not pick it up. Merely let his fingers rest on it for a moment before pulling them back again. Tried not to think about a great many things; who it had belonged to, the hands that had crafted it, what Thranduil soon must use it to do.

Night crept towards them. Thranduil could feel it, a chill inside of his skin, hairs standing on end like buzzing nerves. Tonight was the night. And whatever the end, Thranduil would do Bard one last service; the only thing he had ever had to offer.

He picked up the bow, set his feet on the cold floor, notched an arrow and drew. It had been over a century since he had used such a weapon, but his body had not forgotten. He held the arrow to his cheek, sighting down the shaft into the darkness at its end. He stood like that for a long time. The point of the arrow did not waver. Far above, he felt the light drain away like the final slither of sheets being drawn off his body.

A quiet knock from the doorway. “It’s starting,” Tauriel said.

Slowly Thranduil let the bowstring relax. He carefully removed the arrow and slid it into the quiver with its fellows. They rattled like dry bones as he stood, and followed Tauriel up to the world above.

*

Sigrid stood back as the curtains were opened, one by one. Outside faint purple still blushed against the clouds, but the sun had sunk behind the bulk of the mountain and plunged the cabin into the shadow of full night. Bain and Tilda stood at her side, staring at the windows opening like a wall of eyes.

In the distance, a flicker of light. A star rising from behind the trees, except too low, too bright, too red. And then another joined it.

And another.

Sigrid heard Tilda suck in a short breath, but none of them flinched away.

“Torches,” Bilbo said. The lights were moving now, milling aimlessly as fireflies and sometimes rushing closer than any human could run. They stayed among the trees, flicking in and out of sight behind the trunks. There were no scouts in the woods today.

“Everyone to your posts,” Thorin said tersely.

Bain turned to Sigrid. His fingers tightened on Tilda’s shoulders. “Should we go downstairs?” Sigrid said. Bain hesitated.

“Not yet,” Tilda spoke up. She twisted around to meet Sigrid’s gaze, her eyes wide and still puffy from tears. “Let’s wait just a little longer.”

Footsteps came from the hallway, slow and weary. The rest of Thorin’s company appeared in the central room, Thranduil and Tauriel on their heels. Sigrid felt her stomach twist painfully at the sight of her father’s bow in Thranduil’s hands. Tauriel did not look at her. Sigrid’s heart began to beat faster in her chest, but she wouldn’t let herself panic. Tauriel knew what she had to do.

“Weapons ready,” Thorin said quietly. A rustle of sound moved through the small space, like wind through a forest: hands shifting on wooden shafts, the scrape of metal, the rustle of clothing. The torches gathered just behind the tree line now, distant enough still that the shapes they illuminated were indistinct in the flickering light. Sigrid could see faces, humanoid figures that stood upright, or hunched over like animals. Outside the sickly orange light gathered, but within the house all was dark. Torchlight slipped in through the windowpanes to play over Sigrid’s face. She wondered if they could sense her too, her heat and her scent and her racing heartbeat calling to them, as bright a beacon as the torches.

“Get the humans below,” Tauriel said loudly. “They’ll only get in the way up here.”

Bilbo met her gaze without flinching. His throat bobbed ever so slightly. “I beg your pardon, but I’m staying,” he snapped. “They can’t get into the cabin, and I might be needed here.”

For a moment even Tauriel looked surprised that he would defy her. But then she merely shook her head with a disgusted short, and brushed past him hard enough to send him stumbling. Tauriel stepped over to Sigrid and gestured for her and her siblings to move.

“You heard me,” she said brusquely, shuttering them towards the hall door. “You’ll wait in the caves.”

“But we can help!” Bain cried, starting to push against her.

Sigrid grabbed his arm. “Come on, Bain,” she said. “She’s right.”

Bain stared at her sharply, blinking in surprise. Sigrid met his eyes, then looked to Tilda. At once, he understood. Bain bowed his head and began climbing down, gesturing for Tilda to follow suite. Just before Sigrid was about to follow, she felt Tauriel’s hand close around her wrist. She turned back to the other woman with a cold knot of fear in her chest—just as Tauriel pressed a cold metal tube into her palm.

Tauriel held her gaze for barely a second more. Then without a word she turned back to the room, where the glow of firelight was visible through the windows. Sigrid slipped the syringe into her pocket and followed her siblings down the ladder into the dark.

*

Tauriel returned to Thranduil’s side and hoped that Sigrid’s racing heartbeat would not give them away. It was lucky that Bilbo was not a suspicious man. The serum had simply been in his pocket, there for anyone with light fingers to steal. Tauriel forced herself into the present. She’d upheld her end of the bargain with the girl; it was in Sigrid’s hands now.

“Oh god,” Ori whispered. Her hands pressed to her forehead and a shudder went through her body. “I can feel him.”

As she heard it, Tauriel knew it was true. A ripple went through the crowd—the feeling was like something cold being dripped down the back of her neck, a terror Tauriel only felt when she was drinking it out of her victims. Smaug’s presence. He would crush their minds before he took their bodies, if they let him.

 “Thranduil,” she said. His fingers were resting gently on the bow, his eyes downcast. At the sound of his name he straightened up to look at her, like a pine shrugging off a weighty coat of snow. “Are you with me?”

A bitter smile twisted Thranduil’s lips. His fingers toyed with the bowstring. “To the end,” he said.

“First wave at the ready,” Thorin barked. Tauriel and Thranduil jostled their way to the door with the others who had been chosen, weapons ready. The torches near the tree line were pushing closer, now, bobbing and weaving in a frenzy of movement. The pop and crackle of the flames was a different sort of night song, a strange, unearthly chattering wheeling like bats in the smoke.

They flung the first torch like a javelin. It struck a window a sound like the crack of a whip, a faint tinkle of glass running like music beneath. The torch rebounded back onto the dirt, leaving a fist-sized spider web of cracked glass in its wake, still intact.

“Impact resistant,” Beorn rumbled. He was holding an axe whose blade was the side of Tauriel’s head. “Worth every penny.”

The chattering from the woods grew louder at that, more impatient. Tauriel saw the first of their kind begin to rush forward, and fallback. It was coming. The tide was about to break.

“Stay close to the cabin,” Thorin said. He held a long, wicked knife in his hands, the blade polished to a bright silver, a stake clenched in his left. “Draw them out to us until we have Smaug in our sights.” Bilbo stepped up beside the door and laid his hand on the knob. “Do not be afraid,” Thorin called, his voice level. Tauriel looked to Thranduil but his eyes were on the door.

The torches bunched together, clenching like a fist.

“Du bekar!” Thorin roared, and Bilbo flung the door open.

*

Bain followed Sigrid to the final room in the cavern, as far from the ladder as they could go. There was a new passage carved just beyond that door, broke open by pickaxes and hammers during the day, opening onto a tunnel which Beorn had assured them would lead to the surface. Bain was not sure that anyone had followed it yet. It was to be used only as a last resort. The sucking darkness within sent a shudder through him as he passed it.

The final wooden door led to a large cavern, with some extra supplies stacked in boxes and a couple of spare cots against the far wall. Sigrid stood, staring around them at a loss before settling down on the edge of a cot. Bain and Tilda sat beside her. He couldn’t help but strain his ears for a sound from above, a cry of pain or the clash of blows. There was nothing at all. The room only had one door, and behind it there was only silence.

Sigrid reached out to touch his arm. “Are you okay?”

Bain smiled at her, a little ruefully. “I’ll live. Probably.”

Sigrid’s lips twitched at the awful joke, but he wasn’t sure whether she was trying not to laugh, or holding back some less pleasant emotion. Her eyes turned to the door.

“There’s something I have to do.” Sigrid’s voice was scarcely a whisper. When she looked up her eyes were desperate, wretched, begging for forgiveness for something she hadn’t done yet. _She was going to leave again._ In that moment Bain thought he knew what it would feel like to have a piece of wood shoved into his heart.

“No, Sig,” he said. “Stay with us.”

She just shook her head. “I’ll be right back,” she said firmly, as if trying to convince herself. “I just need to talk to Bilbo.”

“Sigrid no,” Tilda moaned, reaching out to grab at Sigrid’s sleeve. Bain felt her start to tremble at his side. He pulled her closer as if he could pull her terror into himself. There was something in Sigrid’s eyes he couldn’t argue with.

Sigrid gently pulled Tilda’s hand from her sleeve. As if on a second thought, she pulled something from her belt and pressed it into Tilda’s small palm. “Take this,” Sigrid said. “It will keep you safe.”

Tilda grasped the stake in her hand like a talisman. Incredibly, she bit her lower lip and nodded.

Bain clasped a hand on Sigrid’s shoulder. “You’ll be quick?”

Sigrid nodded. A pained smile wavered on her mouth. “You’ll hardly know I’m gone.”

If it was a lie, Bain chose to believe it. “We can come with you.”

Sigrid stood up. Tilda’s hand slipped from her sleeve. She leaned in to press a kiss to the top of Tilda’s head and then Bain’s, as if both of them were just kids again and Sigrid had suddenly become the closest thing they had to a mother. “Wait for me here.”

Bain stared at her face until she turned away. When the door closed behind her, he shut his eyes and pulled Tilda tighter to him. “She’ll be back,” he whispered, and for a moment he believed it. There was nothing to do but wait.

Long minutes passed before he felt Tilda’s shoulders go rigid beneath his arm. “Do you hear that?” she whispered.

Bain almost shushed her. But then he tilted his head, and listened—listened to the cave-silence, without birds or trees or wind to disturb it. A terrible, closeness. But somewhere, not close but not far away either, was a sound that did not belong. Scratching, like insects boring into a piece of wood.

Tilda pressed closer to him. Her hand slipped into his. “What is it?”

Bain forced himself to swallow the fear in his throat. “It’s nothing,” he said, and did not believe it. In the hand that Tilda wasn’t holding, he clutched his stake tighter.

*

Flaming torches painted arcs of movement through the cold night air as the battle raged around them. Thorin ducked beneath one, felt the heat bathe his face as he swung his knife in a horizontal cut. The creature's head tumbled from its shoulders, pale and mute. It was already crumbling to ash before it stopped rolling, and Thorin was on his feet, and lunging for the next kill.

"There's too many of them!" Fili cried, parrying one of their blows and thrusting a stake into its chest. Thorin spied Kili through the smoke and drifting ash, fighting at Tauriel's side. There were fledglings all around them, their eerie cries rushing out of the dark with a flash of fire-lit teeth.

"Stand your ground!" Thorin bellowed, taking out another creature with a flash of steel. The creature’s nails raked over his forearm before it began to crumble, leaving deep, bloodless gashes. At his back Dwalin and Beorn were beating back the fledglings swinging their torches at the wooden walls of the cabin. Some flames had already begun to catch. With a curse, Thorin ran forward to snatch up one of the pails of water they had left outside for such a time. Thorin doused another smoldering blaze before the whole building could go up.

Just a little more time—

Kili's cry of pain shattered the air. The throng had thickened, a swarm of bodies crowding each other like hyenas around a kill. Thorin saw a flash of red hair among them.

"Kili!" Thorin lunged forward, slicing into the jaw of a coming fledging and leaving it twitching in the dirt. "To me!" Thorin shouted, the stake in his other hand finding its mark. Ash and black blood mingled on his hands. He was distantly aware of the others fighting their way to Kili at his side. When they burst through the last of the enemy line Thorin reached down to yank Kili off his back on the ground where he had fallen, a gash torn from his shoulder. Tauriel helped him haul Kili to his feet.

"Retreat!" Thorin bellowed. He saw Nori fall to his knees and then stumble back up again, jaws snapping in his face. Bombur swung his club in a wide arc, turning heads into dark pulp. They fought their way back to the door, where Dwalin and Beorn were holding the remaining fledglings off. Thorin stopped in the doorway. His eyes raked the trees for a sign of any stragglers. Little fires had sprung up in places, the damp wood smoldering like thousands of eyes among the trees. Two bright embers rose up among the branches—and then froze in place, hanging in the smoke and watching Thorin with cruel, awful knowledge. In the flickering light of the spreading fires, a dark figure materialized out of the haze around them.

Thorin felt his mind go still. He stumbled back towards the door, Dwalin and Beorn behind him. As he watched, the fiery eyes moved closer. A smile opened up beneath them. From behind the trees, Thorin heard a low, dark laugh.

He slammed the door, and met Dwalin's eyes. "He's here.”

The faces in the smoky room were flat and waxen with tension. Many were already injured; more looked merely exhausted. In such a battle as the one raging outside, they would not last much longer. This was it. It had to be. “Into the caves. Everyone, now!”

The company leapt into action, seizing the remaining weapons and jostling each other down the hallway. Thorin made sure Bilbo was with them before turning to Beorn. “Is it in place?”

The large human nodded. “Give us sixty seconds.”

“You’ll have them. Have everyone ready for the second assault.” Smoke curled against the windowpanes; torches were beginning to catch in the grass and wood outside the cabin. Soon this room would be an oven, baking everything inside. “The switch?”

“By the ladder. Bofur said there would be a short delay between the switch and the spark. You’d best hope he’s right.” Beorn hefted his axe. His broad back was swallowed by the darkness in the hallway. Thorin began to count.

From outside the house he heard the scrabbling of claws at the windows, the pound of bodies throwing themselves against the walls until their bones broke. _In_ , they seemed to say, their chattering almost swallowed by the crackle of flames. _Let us in._

The windows were blackened with smoke now, air that rasped like fingernails on Thorin’s throat. He breathed it in deep, smelling the deaths of all those Smaug had taken from him in the past. With a grim smile, he walked over to the kitchen table and threw back the cloth, revealing the large tank of propane positioned beneath it. It had taken ten of them to move it after Beorn had detached it from all the house’s fixtures. It sat like a smooth white pill in the flame-licked darkness.

Thorin reached down and turned the release, immediately smelled the cloying gas begin to fill the air. Above the table, the light bulb had been broken open, the filament raw and exposed.

He stepped up to the door. When he laid his hand on the knob it was scalding. The careful seals meant to keep the sunlight out were holding the flames at bay, letting the gas build up inside. But Thorin would not throw the switch until he knew their true enemy was near. “Smaug!” Thorin shouted over the roar of the blaze outside. “Show yourself, you coward!”

From beyond the door, the hungry gnawing of fire. Over its crackle, Thorin heard a chuckle he remembered in the marrow of his bones. Smaug’s presence slid through his mind like a rush of icy water.

“Come to die as your grand-sire did, little one?”

For a moment Thorin considered throwing the door open and staring into Smaug’s eyes as the flames ignited. But he bared his teeth, slammed his fist against the door once, and then turned to run for the hallway. The gas shimmered in the air around him, so thick he could not have taken a breath if he needed to. The hallway. The ladder, just before him. Thorin threw the switch and began to climb.

From inside the walls, the sound of something ticking. Thorin’s hands flew over him as he climbed. He was only a quarter of the way down when the ticking rattled to a stop.

“Oh, damn you, Bofur,” Thorin growled.

He let go of the ladder rungs just as the light fizzled on.

*

It had taken Bain an eternity to drag the beds across the room to barricade the door. The rest of the Company burst through it in a single blow.

Tilda screamed, flinging her stake out in front of her as she crowded into Bain. He tried to calm her as the rest of them came rushing in, everyone shouting, some of them visibly bleeding. “Bilbo!” he cried as soon as he saw the man stumble in. Their eyes met, and Bilbo hurried over, pushing up his glasses with shaking hands.

“Are you alright?” he said, and Bain nodded.

“We’re fine,” he said, squeezing Tilda’s shoulders. “What’s going on?”

Bilbo glanced behind him, his expression still dazed. “They’re about to blow the propane,” he said. “After that we’ll send out a second wave to clean up those that are left.” 

“What about Sigrid?” Bain asked. When Bilbo blinked at him uncomprehendingly he pressed forward. “She left just after we came down here. Said she needed to go tell you something.”

“She’s not here?” Bilbo’s voice was taut.

Bain swallowed, his throat gone dry. “We thought she was with you.”

Before Bilbo could speak again a shout went through the room. “Get down!” someone yelled. On instinct Bain grabbed Tilda and curled around her, covering his head and ears as she did the same. He felt the explosion start in his feet and vibrate through his body, the boom of it shattering far above, as if the world was being ripped apart. When it finally stopped and Bain raised his head, he saw they were all coated with a thin white dust from the ceiling, and nothing more.

“Thorin,” Bilbo breathed, and ran for the door without another word.

“Wait,” Bain cried weakly after him, but fear had closed up his throat. “Sigrid—” But Bilbo was already gone. Bain stared around the room in search of a familiar face. There was a bitter smell in the air, and many of the bodies that jostled past Bain were smeared with ash and black splatters of blood. A spot of brightness in the dim cave leapt out; a glimpse of pale hair.

“Thranduil!” Bain cried, fighting his way through the sea of taller bodies and hating himself for the desperation in his voice. “Wait!”

To Bain’s relief, Thranduil immediately turned to his voice. In seconds Thranduil pushed through the crowd, his expression sharp. Thick black blood was splattered over his face, and his shirt was torn from collar to shoulder, a bloodless gash visible beneath.

He took one look at Bain and his lips grew thin. “Tell me what happened,” he said firmly.

Before Bain could take a breath, Tilda pushed forward. “Sigrid’s gone,” she said, her voice trembling at least as much as her shoulders were. “She said she’d be right back, but then Bilbo said—he said—”

Understanding flashed over Thranduil’s face. His eyes snapped back to Bain. “Did she tell you she was planning something?”

“No,” Bain said. His throat felt nearly too tight for speech. “She was just going to talk to Bilbo.”

Thranduil looked past his shoulder, towards the door. It was thronged with figures again, a new cry starting up—ragged, but tinged with hope. Bilbo came back in, gripping the arm of a bedraggled but intact Thorin. In Bilbo’s free hand was the radio, and he was holding it to his ear as it crackled. “Do you see Smaug?” Bain heard him say, and then the words from the radio: “ _Negative_.” 

“Regroup!” Thorin called from the door. “We’re going back up!”

Thranduil fixed Bain with a hard look. “Stay here. Once we’ve secured the ground level I will come right back and find her. _Keep Tilda safe._ Do you understand?” He did not leave until Bain nodded. The rest of them were streaming out of the caves once again, leaving Bilbo and a handful of the wounded behind.

“What if she was up there?” Tilda said quietly. “Would she have been okay?”

“She’s not stupid,” Bain forced himself to say past the nausea building inside of him. “She would have come down when she smelled the gas.” His grip on Tilda’s shoulder was so tight it must have hurt her, but she didn’t pull away. There was nothing to do but wait for news of whatever was left on the surface.

*

Dori stood in the cinderblock shed with a stake in each hand. There was scarcely enough room to pace in, so she merely shifted her weight back and forth between her feet and stared anxiously through the single inch-wide window that opened to the outside. It reminded her of arrow slits in a castle wall, a distant memory that pulsed with life.

The only way in and out was through the trapdoor that led to the caves, and she was standing on it. No surprises here. The fledglings were nearby; she could hear their snuffling breaths. One pressed its face against the slit and she put out its eye with a stake. They kept their distance after that, but never far.

It happened very quickly.

A light bloomed against the trees. For a single second Dori could see the sharp lines of the cabin before a flash of white consumed it. The sound was like being trapped between two hands clapping shut. Her back slammed into the opposite wall before she knew the shockwave had hit.

Staggering to her feet, she saw the cinderblocks had been knocked out of alignment, but the walls had held. Through the narrow windows she saw nothing but smoke. She fumbled for her radio. “This is the toolshed,” she said. Her words sounded muffled. “Detonation successful. I’m not seeing any movement.“

“Copy that, toolshed. We’re advancing back to the surface.”

She blinked against the light. The air was full of smoke and flame, the ground where the cabin had stood a desolation of broken boards and shattered trees. From amid it all she saw the rubble shift as the trap door was heaved open from within. Dark figures began climbing out. She recognized Thorin at their lead, Kili and Fili short on his heels, with Thranduil and Tauriel a pair of taller silhouettes drifting behind. Soon the majority of their forces were picking through the burning rubble, in search of something to kill.

Dori’s eyes flashed to the trees. “I’m seeing movement in the forest. Fledglings. Must have been too far away to get hit in the blast. Anything nearer must have been blown to pieces.”

“Do you see Smaug?”

“Negative,” Dori said. Hope flared tenuously in her chest. “No visual read. Only—wait—” She pressed her eye closer. The smoke whirled and bulged, distorting everything behind it. Nothing much was moving out there. And yet she felt her gums begin to prickle, her lips instinctively draw back.

“Something isn’t right,” she said. “The ground—it’s almost as if it’s _moving.”_

“Can you repeat that?”

At once Dori took a stumbling step backwards. She wasn’t sure what had thrown her off balance until she felt the ground lurch again. “The ground!” she shouted into her radio. “The blast, it must have destabilized something—“

“Impossible,” she heard Beorn’s voice over the radio. “I know these caves. They’re too deep to have been impacted.”

The fledglings were gathering around the knot of Thorin’s soldiers, yet they did not surge forward as their bloodlust must have demanded. They circled closer to her scouting post too, pounding their fists on the earth as if they could break it from above. Dori saw the cinderblocks around her begin to shift, the shack slumping to one side. Farther away a piece of the ground slid in as if there was nothing beneath it to hold it up.

“I see it—” Thorin’s voice was grim. His radio clicked off but Dori heard him shout: “Everyone to me!”

Dori clutched at the walls as the floor lurched once again. “They’re in the caves! I repeat, they’re—“

The first of the cinderblocks came tumbling down and crushed into her like molars in a jaw. A terrible weight pinned her beneath the rubble, unable to move, feeling something almost like the scraping of frantic nails against the ground beneath her body.

The floor gave way, and she fell.

*

From the moment Thranduil felt the ground beneath his feet start to slide he seized Tauriel’s arm and yanked her to the side. The land was scoured by the blast, great chunks raked out of its surface and smoldering with still-burning fires; and yet it felt as if the earth had come alive, like a corpse swarming with maggots about to burst out into the air.

He heard shouting, felt his feet slip out from under him where a second ago it had been solid. Tauriel’s arm slipped away from him and all he could do was cling to the earth, claw at the burned grass and cracking rock as gravity tried to yank him down. His legs kicked in the open air as the ground fell open like a hungry mouth. He felt something raking at his feet, a clawed hand that gouged his ankle before a kick drove it away. Thranduil dragged himself forward and up, teeth bared, until he could roll onto level ground and scramble away from the edge of the pit.

He stared into the place where seconds ago the rubble of the cabin had stood, now a sunken mass of fallen rock and revealed tunnels. “Tauriel!” There was no reply. He could sense her pain and fear, a strange comfort—at least she was not dead. Near the edges of the pit he could see movement, a few of Thorin’s men who had managed to fling themselves away from the collapse, but the Durins and most of their forces had been swallowed up by the earth. The separate cave systems had been laid open to the air, dark pits swimming behind the dust and smoke.

From within those dark mouths Thranduil saw flickers of movement, noises that called out in answer to their brethren’s cries. They crawled out of the tunnels in search of their prey.

“ _Tauriel_!” His voice was lost amid the crackling flames. Thranduil’s eyes raked the edge of the pit for a way of climbing down. He was not watching the forest at his back.

The attack came without warning. Hands seized him from behind, his arm and neck caught in a grip like the jaws of a wolf; the ground disappeared from beneath his feet, but this time he was being _lifted_ , struggling like a fish on a line. A flash of terrible eyes, so close to his own. The hands tightened, and then were gone—he hurtled through the air, a moment of confusion and motion—his spine slammed into the trunk of a tree and sent him sprawling back into the dirt.

At first, movement was impossible. His eyes slipped off of everything around him, leaving the world fuzzy and nauseating. He forced himself to his knees nonetheless, feeling the pincer-pain of broken ribs digging into his insides. Somehow through it all, Bard’s bow had stayed slung over his shoulder.

He heard the scuttle of movement around him and realized that there were fledglings darting from between the trees, fixing him with sagging grins and bloodhound eyes. But Thranduil looked further, to the crumbling wound in the ground, the tall figure swathed in smoke that stood, hand still raised, where it had tossed him like a rag doll. The boundaries of Thranduil’s mind contracted like a muscle in pain. He stumbled to his feet, the sharp bite of broken bones almost forgotten.

The grin that split Smaug’s mouth could almost be familiar.

*

There was no time to regroup, no time to find their bearings. The ground had gone out from under them the way a cloth was whisked out beneath the dishes on the table. In the pit that had opened up, Thorin could hear his allies nearby, groans and cries and names called out. They needed to come together. They needed—

A screech from far too close cut through his thoughts and left them in tatters. Dark tunnels opened up amid the rubble, a labyrinth of clawed rock. “Kili! Fili!” he cried hoarsely. After a moment he heard their faint replies. Gritting his teeth, Thorin made his way through the rubble, a mess of half-collapsed tunnels and fallen rocks. He found Bifur and Bombur, Dwalin leaning on a rock and cupping a wounded arm, Ori shifting rock in search of someone else’s cries. When Thorin found Fili and Kili they were shoveling rocks away themselves with a fervor that Thorin did not understand, until he saw the plume of red hair spread out over the stone, the grimace of pain on Tauriel’s face. The stone had fallen on her hip. If she had been human she would never walk again.

“Here,” Kili said eagerly as his brother finished moving the rest of the rocks. Tauriel, to her credit, bared her teeth but did not cry out. Kili reached into his coat and pulled forth a packet of blood, only a quarter full.

Tauriel stared at it mistrustfully. “You should save that for yourself.”

“I’m fine. You’re barely able to walk.”

“You might not be fine in a few minutes, Kili. Don’t waste it on me.”

“I’m not wasting it.” Kili pressed it to her mouth, his eyes sickeningly tender. “Drink. I know what I’m doing.” Thorin’s heart sank, but he said nothing as Tauriel slowly obliged. As she drank the scarce ration of blood, Thorin saw the flesh of her hip beneath her clothing shift, bones cracking back into place. That time she did cry out, once and quickly bitten off. Kili nodded in satisfaction and offered her a hand. Tauriel let herself be pulled to her feet, but she still clearly favored one leg.

“That’s better, isn’t it?” Kili said softly.

Thorin looked away before he could gauge Tauriel’s reaction, hear her response. The chatter of fledglings in the nearby tunnels pressed closer. Broken stone walls and half-exposed tunnels closed in around them, with no escape route that didn’t echo with the distant chatter of enemies.

It was here they would make their final stand.

*

The second collapse shook the room so hard that Bain stumbled, and dust from the ceiling began to pour down like streams of rain. The air filled with a dim brown haze, and feel the vibrations of some massive impact right beside them, the deafening crash of rock and muffled screams.

When it was all over Bain raised his head from where he’d wrapped himself around Tilda. He saw shapes shuffling in the darkness, names called out on hoarse throats, questions in a strange language hurled back and forth.

Bain tried to take in a breath and sucked down a mouthful of dust. Between ragged coughs he pulled his shirt over his mouth and saw Tilda had already done the same. “Are you okay?” she asked, her voice muffled. He nodded, eyes watering.

A shape stumbled towards them out of the gloom, glasses and curly hair coated in a layer of dust. “Come here you two,” Bilbo said, his voice strangely high. He was covering his mouth with a pocket handkerchief, wiping uselessly at his glasses with his free hand. “We need to evacuate.”

“I thought Beorn said the caves were stable,” Bain said through his shirt.

“They should have been—this is something different. We need to get out. Through the escape route we opened—”

As Bain watched, a couple of miniscule pebbles bounced harmlessly off Bilbo’s hair. They both looked up. There were no tremors shaking the ground, nothing to suggest an incoming cave collapse—but far above he saw through the dust a little trickle of stone, flakes of it falling down to scatter over the floor.

“What in the world?” Bilbo whispered.

“Is the ceiling coming in?” Tilda asked.

Bain squinted, pushing her back. He could see movement up there, twenty feet above—as if something were picking at the ceiling from above, fingers worming through the growing hole and scratching the rock away.

Bain opened his mouth to shout a warning at the exact moment the creature broke through. It fell onto the floor in a hail of rock shards. Bain leapt backwards, tripping over his feet and falling, feeling warmth raise on his forehead where one of the fragments had cut him. Dazed, he raised a hand to touch it just as something rose from the fresh cloud of dust on the floor, not five feet in front of him. It was pale, like the flesh of a fish, dark veins bulging beneath the skin.

Slowly its head turned. A strange clicking noise emanated from its throat, like an engine guttering but refusing to turn over—until it jerked around, saw Bain. The growl that tore loose from its throat was enough to pin him down to the earth. Bain couldn’t move, not even as he heard Tilda screaming, Bilbo shouting, saw dust motes spinning in the air in sharp, delirious detail. He remembered the stake in his hand. Lifting it would take an eternity.

The creature sprang forward, its mouth opening too wide and too sharp—and a massive black shape shouldered into it, picked it up in a bear hug and squeezed until something snapped like a tree being crushed by a bulldozer. The creature went limp, and Beorn deposited its body on the ground.

“Stake,” he said. With a shaking hand Bain handed his over. The body, though twisted almost beyond recognition, kept twitching until Beorn pushed the wooden length into its chest. He brushed the ash off the stake as the body finished dissolving and handed it back to Bain. “Like that. Right in the heart.”

Bain could do nothing but stare and feel Tilda’s arms thrown around him, shaking him.

Bilbo wore an expression of horror, but his head was tilted back to stare at the hole. “That’s how they collapsed the other caves,” he whispered. “Oh God—”

From the tunnels outside there was the sound of crumbling rock, followed by a screech. The rest of the wounded were on their feet now, their faces weary with pain and fear, their eyes following the sound. So few of them. And no place to go.

Bilbo’s trembled as they wiped his glasses down. “They’re burrowing in.”

*

_His neck—_

There was something wrong with it, wasn’t there? There must have been. It hurt so badly that he could not think, could only continue along the path of least resistance until the pain let him go.

If he could find out what he was meant to be doing, and why he hurt so much, who had done this to him, then maybe—if he could just _remember_ —

No. There was nothing. His thoughts twisted into themselves. After so much pain there was nothing to do but let it carry him higher. And hadn’t he come from pain, back in the brightness that came before he was born? A dull knife edge that ground and ground and ground its way into him, until he was nothing but a raw nerve, an open wound.

Now he was hungry, so hungry, the want of it blistering inside of him, and he didn’t know how to fix it but he had been told; the voice that spoke inside him even now so that even the pain went quiet, the voice that said _go my son you must swallow them all for I have blessed you with my many blessings and now you are mine._

So he went. He ran over the forest floor, and the others were with him, burrowing into the ground. There were pieces of him down there, three bright hungry fragments, and he was going to take them back. Then perhaps he wouldn’t feel so cold.

*

Sigrid had never gone so deep into the caves. The beam of her flashlight played over rocks that warped like bunched muscles. In places the way got so narrow she had to turn to the side and squeeze through, funneling her deeper into the earth. During the day they had work to break through the cavern wall, to access an adjoining passage; one that, according to Beorn, would lead to the surface. An escape route. But it wasn’t towards safety that Sigrid was walking now.

Bain would keep their sister safe. Sigrid repeated that to herself when the light in her hand began to shake too badly. She couldn’t take them with her where she was going. Not with what might—or almost certainly would—happen. She fixed them in her mind as she’d left them, like a talisman against the darkness; but their faces kept sliding them back through the years, until Bain was hip-high and Tilda just born, Sigrid too young and her father too gone. But he had come back to them, then.

She knew he was out there, not waiting but searching, looking for _her_. She would be the first he came for. That much she could feel for certain. Every step she took brought her closer, no matter which way she turned. Her fingers clenched around the syringe.

The caves seemed to stretch on forever. Caves like these had been the last thing her father had ever seen. From the passage behind, she heard a distant cry, channeled down the stone walls like it had been swallowed by a throat. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled. She realized at once that the serum was her only weapon, and there was only one person she could use it on. She had given her stake to Tilda.  

When the passageway divided, she didn’t hesitate. She made for the fresher air, the glint of distant moonlight.  

*

The shadow circled among the trees, a sliding dark figure over the background of smoldering fires. Thranduil followed it as it moved, aware of the fledglings that shifted around him, scavengers at the fringe of a kill. Beyond the trees he heard the sound of the remaining Durins fighting for survival. The roar of flames in the trees grew louder.

“So you’ve decided to show yourself,” Thranduil called. “Grown bored of our terror already?”

Even that small defiance was a challenge, with Smaug so close. Thranduil could feel the strands that joined them together, invisible and intangible but stronger than steel. Thranduil was like a puppet dangling limp in the air—only through sheer effort of will could he stop Smaug from plucking at his strings.

The shadow passed in front of the light again. It was tall, and stooped, its jaw in profile too long and brutish to be human. Its body was like an emaciated bear, walking upright at some times, stooping down on all fours at others. Thranduil felt Smaug’s presence like a burning coal held up to his face.

“I’m far from bored,” Smaug said. His voice was low, and filled with savored cruelty. “I’ve been waiting for this as long as you have, little defiler.”

“If you’re planning to gloat, I think I’d prefer a painful death.”

Smaug did not laugh. Perhaps he lacked the capacity. But Thranduil could perceive his amusement like a thick smell in the air. “A strange word for one who is neither living nor dead. Death is a human idea. But of course, you are little better than a human yourself. Impure.”

“And what does that make you?” Thranduil said. He turned to follow Smaug’s circling movements around him. “You created us.”

Thranduil heard a ripping noise, like someone ponderously raking stone against stone. He caught a glimpse of Smaug’s clawed hand dragging over the bark of a tree, leaving four claw marks in the wood. “I created in my own image, and saw it turn to weeds. Now, I will purify you—as I did your blasphemous sire. As is my right, as your god.”

Rage as blistering as tongues of flame seared the inside of Thranduil’s chest. He slung the bow from his shoulder and notched an arrow. “I welcome you to try,” he spat. “You’ll find I won’t succumb so easily this time.”

Again the thick ripples of amusement, so strong Thranduil had to bite down on the insane grin that threatened to spread over his own face. “I have no plans of facing you. You are not worth my attention,” Smaug said. His shadow had stopped moving, standing against the fiery background and the black bars of the trees. “It’s time you saw what perfection, carefully chosen and applied, truly looks like.”

Pain exploded in Thranduil’s back. His face hit the ground and his vision crushed to black. Something was lodged in his back, a bright hot point of agony. He forced himself onto his knees against the pain,  eyes scanning the darkness for the next attack. The fledglings in the forest around him scattered, hooting in alarm. Smaug’s form had disappeared, but Thranduil could sense him near. And there was something else—a feeling like the lines of an old song running through his head, familiar and yet unreachable, full of awful poignancy.

Thranduil slowly climbed to his feet and reached for the bright flare of pain in his shoulder. He found the stake, grasped weakly at it, pulled it free. As if he had cut his own strings he almost collapsed, blood dribbling on the leaf litter. Missed the heart. But of course, Thranduil wasn’t meant to die so quickly. He raised his head to stare at the dark shape that listed in the moonlight, still and alien.

“Hello Bard,” he said softly.

*

The blows never stopped coming. Thorin stumbled backwards, ducked, spun, felt clawed fingers connect with his chest and send him flying again. Kili. Kili was—yes, he was safe, fighting at Thorin’s side. Where was Fili? Many were missing still. A whole new row of caves had been laid bare before them, open mouths gaping, movement flickering within. Thorin raised his knife.

“Fili!” he shouted over the turmoil. “If you can hear my voice—”

A quiet rattle of breathing came from the largest cave nearby. Thorin turned to it, his mouth opened to call out to whoever was still trapped inside. His words froze on his tongue. The eyes that burned in that darkness did not belong to any of his own. They were yellow as molten gold, piggish, evil.

“I hear you,” Bolg said in a voice like a death rattle. His body was a mess of scars, warped and contorted almost beyond recognition. There were places where the flesh had simply grown around the metal of broken swords and arrows.

No time to see who was standing and who was lost. Thorin could only heft his knife and charge at Bolg again.

A hand stopped Thorin’s blow short. At once he was wrenched off his feet, dangling from Bolg’s grip with the ground swaying beneath him. For one brief moment Thorin was trapped by his eyes, the void of endless centuries suspended within, more time than any conscious being could bear. The monster let out the same grating laugh, like bone grinding on bone. And then Thorin was flung across the room, crashing into Kili and bringing them both to the ground.

“Is this what you’re looking for?”

Thorin struggled to rise. At first he did not understand what he was seeing. Fili—Fili being dragged through the mass of enemies around them, covered in wounds, his jaw and nose broken. The fledglings threw him down at Bolg’s feet. When Fili struggled to rise, Bolg’s foot crashed down on his back and pinned him down.

“Fili,” Thorin heard Kili whisper, his eyes locked onto his brother. Thorin was watching the far cavern, the shapes stirring in the dust there. Thorin held onto the fabric of Kili’s jacket, holding him back with all his strength.

Without hesitation Bolg reached down to jerk Kili’s head back by the hair, wrenching him off the ground so that his face was turned to Thorin. He met Fili’s eyes for one brief instant.

Bolg tore Fili’s head from his shoulders with a sound like ripping cloth.

A white, blinding flash behind Thorin’s eyes—and then a terrible darkness. An entire chamber of his mind went blank, swallowed itself and disappeared. Fili. Fili was gone. There was nothing left but a void.

Thorin’s hands loosened even as Kili tore free of him with a howl of rage in his throat, lunging towards Bolg and the body of his brother, already beginning to crumble into nothingness. “Kili, no—” the conscious part of Thorin shouted, but Kili wasn’t listening. In a terrible dream Thorin surged forward, trying to stop the long claws that reached out, the death that Kili unthinkingly rushed to meet.

*

He stood like a crooked tree, listing to the side, his limbs at strange angles. The scar stretched beneath his jaw like a shadow cast down his neck, the flesh and skin churned up like mud in a busy walkway before Smaug pulled it back together again. Bard was smiling, and it was impossible not to think of it as _Bard_ , the thing that looked and smelled almost like him, the life and blood not fully drained away. There were still bits of the old Bard clinging to him, the smell of his hair, the blood in his veins that had stopped moving and begun to congeal, but not yet to decay.

The Bard-thing raised a new stake in his hand, smiled down at it and then smiled at Thranduil. “Hello,” he said hoarsely. Perhaps he had not yet discovered the key to taking in air for speech rather than breathe. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Is it?” Thranduil took a step to the side; Bard mirrored him. The fledglings were hanging back now, forming a loose ring around them as they began to circle.

“Oh yes,” Bard said. “I was looking for you.”

Thranduil’s fingers tightened on the bow. “And I you.”

“Just like old times, eh?”

Quicker than sight Thranduil had an arrow notched; he fired it, it was in the air, whistling right for the heart—

Bard’s body twisted like a falling cat’s, and the arrow thudded into the meat of a fledgling behind him. The smile on his face only widened.

“Only things are different now, aren’t they?” Bard said. His face and body twitched, a chorus of plucked muscles played by some other hand. “Now I’m not your plaything.”

“Is that what Smaug told you?” Thranduil called. He had the next arrow in his hand but he did not draw the bow. It felt good— _so good_ —to hear Bard’s voice again. But there was something broken inside of it, a flat chord.

“He didn’t need to tell me anything!” Bard’s hand blurred. Thranduil scarcely had time to duck before the stake whistled past his neck. Bard was too fast. _Impossibly_ fast, for one just awakened. He would scarcely be on his feet yet, had any other than Smaug been the one to sire him.

“I remember,” Bard hissed. He stayed low to the ground in a feral crouch, a predator’s position. “I remember what you did to me. All the fear. All the pain. The _humiliation_.”

“It wasn’t like that anymore,” Thranduil said. His feet were rooted to the ground. Bard prowled around him, the circle closing. “We changed. Don’t you remember?”

Bard’s face contorted. “You changed!” he snarled. “And I—when was I ever given a choice?”

“ _Smaug_ gave you no choice.”

“I don’t care. He made me powerful. All you ever did was take me away, piece by piece.”

“And what’s left of you now?” Thranduil cried. Hope was a knife pressed to the chamber of his heart. “Try to remember, Bard,” he said, desperation bringing his voice low. “Try to see what he’s done to you.”

Bard was silent. His movement stopped. For a moment, all was still. “I do remember,” Bard said. “I remember… _her_.”

Bard head tilted back. The knife in Thranduil’s heart cut deeper. “She was quite beautiful, wasn’t she? Not my memories, of course. But Smaug gave me many gifts. I can tell you exactly what it felt like to pour the oil over her. To smell her fear.”

“Stop,” Thranduil said through gritted teeth.

Bard laughed. “Yes, she did say that, didn’t she? _Stop, please, not like this_. She begged for mercy in front of you. And yet even after Smaug showed you her rotting core, you _still_ insist on loving her. Should I tell you how much Smaug enjoyed killing her? How he relished her terror and pain?” Bard leaned forward, the glint of the rising fire in his eyes. The sight shot through Thranduil’s stomach like a spear, a memory, a dream. “Or perhaps you’d rather hear about how he enjoyed killing _me_.”

Thranduil raised the arrow at the moment Bard lunged. It went wide, hissing into the trees, and then Bard was on him.

No stakes now, only slashing nails and blind, dumb fury. Thranduil caught his wrists too late, pried those brutal claws off his throat as he choked and bled—then he saw the snap in Bard’s eyes, a lighter clicking on, the terrible flare of understanding bursting to life. His jaws plunged into Thranduil’s neck, teeth sinking in and then tearing out. Thranduil screamed until he could not any more—he torn, decapitated, Bard chewing through skin and veins and muscle. Thranduil felt teeth scrape bone and could do nothing. Black blood coating his tongue. He was—

Bard stopped, pulled away. Dead blood smeared over his lips and chin like he had taken a bite out of a black rotting fruit. He was close, so close that Thranduil could catch the familiar smell of him, drag it through his nose on a breath that guttered out somewhere in the ruin of his throat.

“Finally,” Bard whispered, and Thranduil saw there were tears streaming down his face, dead tear-ducts shedding their last. He lifted one of his wrists to his mouth and licked the blood where Thranduil’s nails had dug in. It was still red. Thranduil could almost watch the last of Bard’s humanity drain away.

Bard plucked Thranduil’s stake from the ground and placed it over his sternum.

*

Sigrid squeezed her way through a narrow cave mouth and back into the open air of the forest, when she heard the cry. The trees stood silent and unmoving, so still Sigrid thought she had imagined it. Until it came again. And again. Each time it grew more desperate—something out there was dying. With a lurch in her chest Sigrid thought she recognized the voice.

It was not a conscious decision to go towards the sound rather than away from it. She ran between the tree trunks, moving down the slope of the mountain and struggling not to let her downward momentum overtake her feet. The faint smell of smoke trawled through her memory, a greasy tinge in her nostrils. The faint light that filtered through the trees was a hellish shade of red. She was moving back towards the ruins of the cabin, back to where the thick of the fighting would be.

At first when she stumbled into the clearing she wasn’t sure what she was seeing. The light of the moon was dimmed beneath the trees, and the small fires burning around served only to smudge the darkness. She saw a shape hunched over something on the ground. A body, she realized. A body haloed by black blood, the limbs flung open and unresisting, the white-blonde hair—

Sigrid couldn’t stop the gasp in her throat, as loud as a gunshot in the eerie silence. The hunched figure jerked up. Its eyes caught the light. Around its throat, the terrible scars Sigrid would not allow herself to look at. Sigrid met her father’s gaze and saw her own murder reflected back at her. 

“There you are, Sigrid,” he said. His voice was a low purr, strange and frightening and utterly unfamiliar. “I was wondering when you’d find me.”

Sigrid’s eyes darted between her father and Thranduil’s body. He wasn’t moving or breathing, but what did that mean? He hadn’t crumbled to ash. He could still be alive.

Bard followed her gaze and clicked his tongue. “Don’t look at me like that. You wanted this too.”

“Not like this,” Sigrid said. “This isn’t you. You wouldn’t do this.”

Bard grinned. “But Sig, I just did.” He straightened up. Sigrid had always known in a distant way that her father was a big man, tall with the bulk to support it. Never before had that knowledge frightened her.

“I suppose you came to talk me down,” he said dispassionately. He stepped closer and stooped down to pick something out of the leaves. The bow. He inspected it idly, drawing the string and then relaxing it. The quiver was around Thranduil’s shoulder. When he yanked it off his body Sigrid thought she heard a watery noise of pain.

Bard turned to face her. “Well?” he said impatiently. “What have you got to say, dear one? I’d hate to deny you the chance to say your piece before I kill you.”

Sigrid’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly before she found the words. “I don’t believe you’re going to do that.”

“I know you don’t. That’s what makes this so delicious.” Bard grinned again. The expression seemed to flicker off and on his face like a light switch flipped by a capricious child.

Sigrid felt her eyes stinging with tears and didn’t bother blinking them back. “I know my father is still in there somewhere,” she said. “You can fight this, Da.”

Something faltered on Bard’s face. A flicker, nothing more. Hope surged in Sigrid’s chest, and she haltingly took a step forward. The curve of the syringe dug into her palm. “Do you remember that time that we took a drive to the coast? You and mom and Bain and me. We got lost for hours and didn’t get to the beach until sunset. But we played in the waves anyways, even though it was too cold, and we ate turkey sandwiches. I remember we drove back in the dark, and mom and Bain were asleep, but I met your eyes in the rear view mirror and—you just smiled at me.” Sigrid felt the hot tears sliding over her cheeks. Bard’s face before her was pinched, as if some distant pain was nagging at the back of his mind. “Try and remember it, Da. Do you remember what you said?”

Bard groaned, pressing the heels of his hands over his eyes. “I remember…” he said wretchedly.

“It’s okay, Da,” Sigrid said, taking another step forward. “Remember it. What did you say?”

Bard shook his head, still covering his face with his hands. “I said… I… said….” All at once Bard collapsed into giggles, high-pitched and terrifying. “I’m sorry,” he said, dropping his hands. “I can’t keep that up for any longer. Did I have you convinced?”

Sigrid stared at him in mute incomprehension, the hope too strong to die so quickly.

“I do remember that night, by the way. I said, ‘Steady, copilot. We’ll get them home safe.’” Bard smiled with satisfaction. “It means nothing to me.”

“Da,” Sigrid choked out. “Don’t say that.” She took another step closer. The syringe was slippery with sweat, tucked in her hand and partly up her sleeve. Her fingers were shaking so bad she was afraid she’d drop it. Just a little closer.

Bard sighed. “This is getting tiresome. I can see I’m not making my point.”

He moved so quickly that Sigrid only heard the rush of air—and then felt the pain. Her hands clamped instinctively over the red wash of agony in her leg, and when she looked down she saw her fingers circled around the shaft of an arrow protruding from her thigh. She cried out, one sharp, disbelieving cry, her hand fluttering around the wound and already covered with her own blood. Somehow she had managed not to drop the syringe.

Her thoughts bled together like water tumbling over an edge. He couldn’t have. But he had—he _shot_ her. A low, shaking cry escaped her throat. Was she supposed to pull the arrow out or leave it in? _In_ , she thought, but there was no time, because Bard was patiently selecting another arrow from his quiver, straightening the fletching with idle fingers.

“It’s been so long since we played games together,” he said. “How about ‘tag’?”

Thranduil twitched, a susurration escaping his throat, choked with thick black blood. Sigrid realized it was her name. She looked down to see his eyes open and fixed on her, bulging wide with the fruitless effort of speech, his limbs twitching weakly and failing to rise. _Run,_ she realized he was saying, his mouth shaping the word with only a gurgle of air behind it. _Run, run, Sigrid, run._

With a sob, she obeyed.

*

Kili had promised himself that the losses were over. That after tonight, he would let nothing be taken from him again.

Nori fell at his side, a fledgling gnawing deep into his shoulder. Kili couldn’t even cry out, couldn’t turn to help as he drove back the constant tide of violence Smaug’s forces poured over them. His awareness was shrunk only to what was in front of him, the desperation, the fury, the grief.

 _Brother._ The word echoed through his hollow being like the howl of a violent wind. Where once there had been a familiar consciousness resting against his own there was nothing but a phantom limb, a dull agony of loss. _Bolg,_ his bloodlust cried in answer. He’d kill them all. He’d make them pay.

Distantly he was aware of his name, echoing over the clash of the battle. He couldn’t have heeded it even if he wanted to. He was far from his allies now, deep in the enemy lines, ash spinning from his weapons like mist. He bared his teeth in furious satisfaction as he cut down yet another. Ash flew from his hands and coated his clothes.

His name again, louder this time. A voice that jarred something loose inside of him, a rattling of unease. He turned his head to follow it and saw nothing but glowing eyes and gaping mouths, broken rock walls and the stars high above.

“ _Kili!”_ the voice screamed. A flash of red hair. He blinked, seeing his position clearly for the first time. He was surrounded, fledglings closing in from all sides. Tauriel was fighting her way right into the trap that had already closed around him.

“Tauriel, stop—”

In the next second the pain came crashing down.

He felt something digging into his neck, blood already beginning to ooze from the wound. He reached back and found something that could have been flesh, nails digging in like pins into a bug. He struggled to push it away, his movements strange and slow and weak—his feet kicked uselessly as he was lifted off the ground, twisted around, and he was staring into Bolg’s eyes. _Brother,_ his mind cried again, even as he stared down the awful sneer, the wooden spit raising to align with his chest.

He heard the crunch of wood pushing into his flesh before he felt the pain. He was floating, scattering, turning as light as feathers. Tauriel’s face. He could see her mouth moving, though he could not hear the words. He wanted to comfort her. He could not open his mouth. Kili stared into Tauriel’s eyes for as long as he could, until the grey that crept up from his chest dissolved him into nothing.

*

Tauriel watched the light in Kili’s eyes snuff out as the stake plunged into his heart. His name dragged from her throat as she fought towards him, even as his skin began to curl into ash. The fledglings closed around her and by the time she tore through them there was nothing. He was gone. Her screams sliced the air as she clawed at the fledglings around her, even as some impossible force dragged her back, away from the empty space where Kili should have been, Thorin’s hand tugging her back behind the faltering line of their allies.

She looked up into Thorin’s face. For a moment she didn’t recognize him.  His eyes were wide, full of terror and grief—almost human. She lashed out on impulse, breaking free of his grasp until she fell to the cave floor. It was sticky beneath her palms, ash and blood.

“They’re gone,” Thorin croaked.

Tauriel wanted to tear into him for that, to seize on his weakness and obliterate herself in the process. She wanted to lay her cheek on the filthy stone beneath her and wait for what came.

“What do we do?” she said thickly. Shouts rang out around them, a constant backdrop of pain and fury. Smaug was nowhere to be found. They would be destroyed without even a chance to kill him—without even seeing him. Crushed like ants.

A moment’s hesitation, and then Thorin offered his hand. She let him pull her to her feet and looked at him clearly for the first time. He had the face of a man who was accustomed to losing everything; who had done it before. A man for whom loss had become a kind of necessity, a great big bubble of nothing that supported everything else.

“We kill him,” Thorin said hoarsely. “And then we join the ones he already took from us.”

Tauriel smiled weakly. “Blood and vengeance. A decent death.”

“At last, something we agree on.”

Out in the chaos Bolg wove in and out of the battle, like a shark drifting after its prey. There was blood in the water now. They all would have their taste.

*

Pain shot through Sigrid’s leg with every step, with every heartbeat, with every breath. It beat a crazed, ragged rhythm against every fiber of her being. She couldn’t slow down. The trees around her were silent and dark, the carpet of pine needles beneath her feet muffling her limping steps, so that there was only the sound of her sharp gasps in the still night air.

A whisper from behind. On instinct, she threw herself down. The arrow shot over her head; as her body hit the ground, the shaft in her leg was pushed deeper into the wound. Her vision filled with red as the scream tore out of her. She couldn’t get up, it was impossible, she was so tired and in so much pain, if she could just rest a moment longer, let the red tide sweep her away—

“That wasn’t very clever, darling,” the voice called from behind her. “You’re smarter than this.”

Sigrid’s hand curled in the needles. It brushed something cool and hard. With a jolt, she seized the syringe that had fallen beside her, clutched it like a talisman. Her heart pounded hard, brutal, alive. She forced herself onto her hands and knees. In another moment she was on her feet. She heard nothing from behind her, no sound of footsteps or huff of breath, and yet she felt him there—imagined her father’s body, an empty vessel gliding over the forest floor like a ghost.

“Remember,” she heard him call out kindly, closer than before, “Every mistake you make takes a little more time off your remaining life. It’s winding down, Sig. You ought to count your seconds.”

Sigrid took in a gasp of air that was more like a sob, and started limping again. Now he was close enough that Sigrid heard the creak of wood, the bow’s tension drawing up for the next shot. This time she dove behind a tree, keeping her feet even as the arrow nicked the bark inches from her head, sending a spray of dirt and wood against her cheek.

“Better!” her father cried. Sigrid didn’t wait. She lunged into a halting run, trying to put as many trees between her and Bard’s voice as she could. She ran, and stumbled, and kept running, until there was no voice taunting her, no bow being drawn. Hope and terror soared in tandem. She ducked and weaved, her feet picking up speed as the slope grew steeper beneath her. If she could find a house—somewhere he couldn’t follow—

This time, she heard no warning before the arrow buried into her shoulder, with a sound like a tenderizer hitting meat. She fell, lost her footing on the slope and rolled the rest of the way, feeling the snap of the arrow breaking lose from where it had lodged in her shoulder. Her stomach slammed into a tree and stopped her fall at last, knocking the air from her lungs.

She lay, arms weakly grasping at nothing, staring up the slope. The moon shone through the trees that rose up over her. It was a cool blue scene, remote, peaceful but for the dark splashes on the ground, the tussle of dirt and displaced needles where she had fallen. This time, she could not get up. Her body began to tremble and she could not stop it.

A shadow rose over the hill.

“There you are,” Bard said, as if she were a toddler again, hiding from him in the backyard, playing a game. “Oh, Sig. You don’t look so good.”

Sigrid struggled to rise as he came closer. One arm was useless. She could feel the blood seeping out of the wound in her shoulder, hot and sticky down her back. She couldn’t even sit up. Not even as Bard closed the distance between them, ten feet, _five_ , and she looked up into her father’s face and saw the hunger in his eyes, the way they lingered on her blood.

He knelt before her, almost reverently. She was shaking still, and her hand hurt as if something was digging into it. With a start she realized that the syringe was still clenched in her fist of her good arm, held all the tighter as she fell. She shifted it in her hand, her eyes never leaving her father’s.

Slowly, he reached out to pull the arrow out of her leg.

Sigrid screamed, and tried to squirm away, but there was nowhere to go and no strength to fight. It left her flesh with a gush of blood that started flowing fast and didn’t stop. Her head was getting fuzzy, the terror and anguish and blood-loss siphoning her thoughts away. All she had was the serum. She could see the dark bulge of the vein in Bard’s neck, imagined exactly how she’d slide the needle in. He was still too far away. Just a little closer and she would do it.

Bard reached down to brush her hair out of her eyes the way he had when she was little. He left a smear of her own blood on her forehead. There was a tenderness in his gaze that she recognized. For a moment she saw her father. One last time.

“Don’t cry, Sig. You’re going to see your mother again.”

His hands closed around her elbows. Suddenly she was lifted clear off the ground, her back slammed against the trunk of the tree. She yanked against his grip, struggling to bring her hand up, the needle, the serum that would save her, but he held her fast and she couldn’t reach, couldn’t—

He stared into her face. “Goodbye, daughter.”

He leaned forward and tore into her throat.

*

They were coming through the walls now, stone cracking beneath their claws like rats chewing through a wooden crate. Bain, Tilda, and the rest of the wounded were all clustered in the center of the room, their backs to each other, calling out each new point of entry. For every fledgling they killed, another followed the tunnel it had made. Bain could hardly breathe through the dust and ash in the air. He tried to keep a hand on Tilda as often as he could, pushing her back, making sure she wasn’t crushed in the throng of bodies around them.

 _Where was Sigrid_ —

A fledgling sprung from a cloud of dust, long fingers reaching to carve him open. He thrust out his stake with a cry, felt the weight hit him so hard he was nearly knocked over. And then it was gone, crumbling to ash that sloughed over his hand and forearm. Its bitter dryness coated his tongue. He gagged, reached for Tilda again, making sure she was safe. That was all that mattered now. If they were going to die choking and bleeding in a hole in the ground, Bain would do it with his family by his side.

*

Bolg waited for them to come. Thorin caught the fledgling that rushed at his back, using its momentum to crack its spine against the rocks against the rocks, echoed throughout the cave. The others backed away as Thorin and Tauriel advanced, forming a ring of bodies around them. Bolg would want the pleasure of the kill all to himself. A grim smile twisted Thorin’s lips. If it was the last thing he ever did, Thorin would make that Bolg’s undoing.

Tauriel screamed in rage at his side, leaping forward without thought or strategy—she ducked under Bolg’s swinging blow, but was not quick enough to plunge the stake into Bolg’s heart. Thorin lunged for one of his arms and brought his knife down on the wrist—it stuck in the flesh where it should have cleaved straight through it, and in another moment Bolg knocked him to the stony floor.

 _His armor is too thick_. As he struggled to his feet Thorin could see the evidence before his eyes, ancient weapons rusting in Bolg’s skin where their owners had unsuccessfully tried to cut him open. Millennia had toughened his hide. No glancing blow would pierce that skin. It would have to be done close, firm, without flinching. And Bolg was not likely to give them such leisure.

But there was another way.

Tauriel struck the stony wall at Thorin’s side and slumped against the rock. She struggled to rise, black blood streaming over her face, but Thorin could see at a glance that she was failing. For a moment he just looked at her. Strange, to think of dying at the side of one he’d once considered his enemy. And yet, he did not mind it so much. They had done what they could. Now, there was only this.

Slowly, Thorin rose. He heard Tauriel calling his name, calling him back, but he walked with slow purpose. Bolg watched him come, that mocking smile fixed on his mouth. Thorin could see it in his eyes as well. The ending that awaited them both. Thorin bared his teeth in a wild grin.

He struck with his knife at the same moment Bolg’s arms shot out towards him. His blow cut against Bolg’s neck, sinking an inch deep before the blade stuck fast. Bolg’s hand closed around Thorin’s throat and lifted him—just as Kili had been lifted, before he died. Thorin saw Kili and Fili mirrored in those terrible blank eyes as Bolg lined the stake up with his heart. The point pressed into his skin and then through it, crumping bone and parting flesh. Bolg wanted it to be slow. He wanted to savor Thorin’s agony.

Thorin’s breath guttered against the hand around his neck. But it was laughter, not pain, that caught against Bolg’s hand as the monster drew him to its breast. Thorin was inches away. Bolg’s hands were full. Even as Thorin felt the stake slip between his ribs, his hand tightened at his side. There was no missing now.

With the last reserves of his failing strength, he plunged his stake into Bolg’s heart.

*

The pain was gone.

It was so beautiful—the waves of red heat that washed over him, through him, pressing in his veins until he felt he would burst. So sweet. At last the screaming snarled around his neck was silenced, drowned in honey.

And yet something wormed through that perfect feeling, a probing vein of discomfort. Not pain, but a prickle of cold—he was freezing, shivering, and something was so very wrong—where was he? Slumped on the ground, holding something to his chest. The taste in his mouth was like a rusty blade sitting on his tongue.

Bard opened his eyes.

He couldn’t breathe—his mouth was full of something warm and slick. When he pulled back he felt his teeth slide out of it He gasped, dragging air into his lungs that gave him no relief. No matter how he gulped it down he kept strangling inside of himself. Heat sat in his stomach like a leaden ball, and yet his fingers burned with cold. His vision was dark, silvered by moonlight. Difficult to make sense of what he was seeing. He was holding something soft, something warm but cooling quickly. A person. Darkness stained her neck and shirt. Bard’s heaving breath caught in his throat and stayed there. He knew her face.

“Sigrid.” His voice sounded strange, hoarse and choked and thick with the coating on his tongue. _Blood_. “Sigrid.”

Memory opened up inside of him like a yawning pit. The caves—dragged into the dark, and the pain, the terrible pain. He’d chased her. He’d _hurt_ her. And now—

“Oh god.” Bard pressed a hand to his daughter’s cheek, leaving a smear of dark blood behind. Her skin was cold. _No_. She could not be dead. He wouldn’t have, he would have stopped himself, he would have come back soon enough—but what had brought him back at all? Desperately Bard clutched at Sigrid’s shoulder, her arms, as if trying to feel for a spot of life tucked away inside of her. There were other wounds on her body, an arrow-hole in her thigh and a snapped-off shaft in her shoulder.

Something glinted in the moonlight. In her hand, a small syringe jammed into her thigh. The plunger had been depressed all the way, pouring into her veins. And then, into him.

His cry wavered on the air. “Sigrid, no, look at me honey, please, open your eyes—” He realized he was shaking her, his voice raising to a fevered pitch. There was something in his teeth, strips of flesh caught between them, and he nearly gagged on his horror and grief. “ _Sigrid_ —”

“She is alive.”

The voice drifted out of the trees, jerking Bard’s head up like a marionette. A dark figure lingered against the stars at the top of the hill. As Bard watched, it began to creep down to him. Cold horror settled in Bard’s bones. “Why have you not yet killed her?”

Swallowing his desperation, Bard pressed a hand to the side of Sigrid’s neck. It was sticky with blood, and her skin was so cold—but there, beneath the skin, he felt the fluttering of her heart. Part of him wanted to weep with relief. Another part still ached to lean down and drink that last shred of life out of her.

He could sense Smaug drawing closer, a sinuous darkness threading among the trees. Bard could still sense him on the fringes of his mind, a terrible void that threatened to drag him into nothing. He had been inside of that nothingness. The serum in Sigrid’s blood had pulled him out of it. There was no movement in Bard’s chest, no need for him to draw breath. Only then did he fully understand what he had become. What he had to do.

“Where are you, little one?” Smaug murmured.

Bard’s hands tightened on Sigrid’s arms. “Here,” he said, the word hanging in the still night air. “I am here.”

The shifting sounds drew closer. “What has happened to you?” he crooned. “Your thoughts are shielded from me.”

“I do not know.”

“Hmm…” The voice seemed thoughtful, but not concerned. Perhaps Smaug did not have the capacity for fear. “Your becoming is almost complete. I saw what you did to the white-haired one; beautiful, the way he twitched. And yet you left him for the sun, rather than savor the kill yourself.”

Bard struggled for the words he was expected to say. “I wanted to let him suffer.”

The closer Smaug got, the more Bard felt his influence surging against his mind, like tongues of flames burning through his defenses. The darkness called to him again, so tempting in its oblivion—the only pain waiting for him there could be slaked by an opened throat. No more anguish. No more loss. All he had to do was let go, and lose everything.

“Is that your child?” The voice was filled with a terrible mockery. “You cannot save her from this fate. Take her life. Become what you were created to be. I promise you, nothing will be easier.” As Smaug spoke the words, Bard knew them to be true. The slithering drew closer.

Something nudged his hand.

Bard looked down to see Sigrid’s eyes cracked open, two bright slivers beneath her lids. He bit back the cry of joy that would have betrayed him. Lips moving soundlessly, she pressed something into his palm: the shaft of the arrow he’d pulled from her leg. It was short and coated in her blood, but he closed his hand around hers and felt a surge of love and pain so strong it threatened to overcome him. Slowly, Bard’s other hand crept across the leaf litter. The tips of his fingers nudged the smooth wood of his bow.

“Do not be afraid,” Smaug said. Bard saw the moonlight glinting off Smaug’s eyes as he dropped to all fours. In the darkness, the suggestion of teeth. “She is forsaken. No help will come. You may kill her at your leisure.”

“I cannot,” Bard said. His voice wavered, but his hands were steady. “I need your guidance. Will you… finish her with me?”

One hand gripped the bow—in the other, the arrow. He would have only one chance.

Closer. Smaug reared back, a dark shadow rising against the moon. “Nothing would please me more.”

He took the final step.

Bard moved with all the speed that Smaug had given him, his hands blurring as he raised the bow and notched the arrow. There was a brief moment when he saw Smaug froze, and wondered whether in all the millennia of his long and empty existence, he had ever experienced surprise. The teeth bared in a sly smile suddenly opened like a steel trap, a roar of fury building behind them. The heart. It had to be the heart.

As the terrible jaws closed in on him, Bard let the arrow fly.

*

The world was chaos. Pain, motion, blurring bodies and glancing blows. Tauriel warded off the attacks and lashed out with her own, sending fledglings crumbling to ash even as her vision flickered between light and dark. Thorin. Thorin was—she could not hold the thought in her mind. She saw Kili dissolving into nothing again and again, saw Fili’s head torn from his shoulders and the ground opening up around her. Nails raked her throat. She tore the hand from its wrist.

She forced herself to stare down the knot of fledglings closing in around her. No stake in the heart for her. As she stared at the seething mass around her, she realized they were going to tear her apart. A scrap of meat tossed to wild dogs. How long would she remain conscious, before they had the decency to separate her head from her body?

Tauriel raised her stake, peeling her lips back from her teeth as she faced the swarm of fledglings before her. She lunged forward—

The feeling broke over her like a wave, so powerful that for a moment she could only sway on her feet, nearly falling to her knees. The sense of a sheet being whisked from her mind, of a dull roar in her ears suddenly falling silent, of a thread in her very center being cut. Tauriel gasped, stumbled to the side—and when she raised her head, the fledglings around her had changed.

No longer did they turn to her with that mad hunger in their eyes. They scattered like leaves in a wind, some turning and fleeing, others falling to the ground as if wracked with some terrible pain. Others still turned on each other, tearing and biting until there was nothing left for them to rip apart. Tauriel stood in the center of it all, untouched.

She tilted her head back and stared at the stars. With a faint sense of disbelief, she realized that death had not chosen her today. The fledglings would not be back—there was only one thing that could have stopped their bloodlust.

Smaug was dead. They had won.

*

It happened almost instantly. One moment the fledglings were pouring through the holes in the room, and in the next they turned and fled. Bain stood with his stake still raised, muscles trembling in terror and exhaustion. The rest of the wounded still on their feet shuffled nervously, waiting for the attack wouldn’t come. Nothing. No fresh eyes glinting with hunger, no claws scratching through the stone.

Bain looked at the faces around him and saw wonder breaking across them, hands raising to brows as if feeling a great weight lifted.

Slowly, tentatively, their bedraggled group made their way to the exit. The world outside was utterly changed—they stepped not into the caverns, but into caverns torn open and laid bare beneath the night sky. Smoke rose from the trees nearby, rippling over the stars. In the distance Bain could hear the shrieks and whoops of the fledglings, inhuman cries of pain. He tightened his hand on Tilda’s but they did not slow down.

There were hardly any bodies—that was the strangest thing. Just ash, coating everything like the aftermath of a terrible explosion. Slumped or crouched in the grey world were the wounded and the exhausted—friends rushed to their side, crying out in joy or alarm. Bain’s eyes scanned the featureless rubble, but there was no sign of Sigrid.

“Thorin!” The cry made Bain’s head jerk up. Bilbo rushed past him, falling to his knees at the side of a figure lying face-up in the rubble. Another body lay nearby, but it scarcely looked human—the stake in its breast had been driven all the way in. Bain watched as the survivors dragged it away from Thorin, and began searching for something to burn it with.

Bilbo’s hands fluttered around the length of wood jutting up from Thorin’s breast. It seemed it had already pierced his heart—Bain could see the grey spreading out from the wound, ash curling up around it like grey flowers.

“Don’t move, don’t move.” Bilbo reached out and settled his hand on the stake. “I’m going to pull it out—”

Thorin grabbed his wrist. “Not yet. Bilbo…”

Bilbo’s movements were too fast, too clumsy. He fumbled with the knife on his belt, pressing it to his own wrist. “Then you need to drink, to restore your strength—”

Thorin’s hand slid up to cover Bilbo’s. “It’s too late.”

“I can still save you—”

“No, Bilbo. You can’t.”

Bain saw Bilbo’s shoulders tremble. His hand clasped Thorin’s weakly, squeezing it as if trying to massage the life back into it—life it hadn’t felt in years. Bilbo leaned forward, his words going very quiet. Bain turned away, guiding Tilda away from their private grief. He passed by Dwalin, staring at the figures in the ash with broken eyes. When Bain glanced back over his shoulder Bilbo sat in the ash alone, a stake held numbly in his hands.

“What do we do now?” Tilda whispered.

Bain stared down at her with a lump in his throat. Above them, the sky was beginning to lighten into a greenish-grey. Dawn was coming. It did not feel like a new beginning.

Bain closed his eyes. “We look for our sister.”

*

Thranduil watched the stars wink out. The sky grew paler. The moon drifted beyond the edges of the trees. Only pain was constant.

He did not bother trying to take in breaths to cry for help—there was no one to hear, and he had no throat left to speak with. All he could do was keep trying to claw at the forest floor, dragging his body in the opposite direction from the caves and the promise of shelter. Inch by inch, he pulled himself towards the trees that had swallowed Bard and Sigrid both. He needed to find them. Or what was left of them. That was all that mattered.

Somewhere nearby, the rustle of footsteps. That, too, was beyond Thranduil’s control. He went still as they drew nearer, a strange limping gait. When a familiar head of red hair appeared in his line of vision, he was too empty to feel relief.

“Thranduil,” Tauriel whispered. She fell to her knees at his side, fingers hovering over the ruin of his wounds. He saw her swallow, hard. “I’m going to get you back.”

 _No_ , Thranduil tried to say. _We have to go find them_. But Tauriel could not hear him—his words guttered out of the hole in his throat, his tongue flailing uselessly in his mouth. His hands scraped the ground as Tauriel dragged him away, away from the rise where Bard had disappeared.

He kept his eyes on it for as long as he could. Then, the pain erased everything.

*

The tree was hard against his back. Bard scarcely felt it at all. His bow lay forgotten at his side as he held Sigrid to his chest. Her heartbeat was a slow, sluggish throb. Alive. But her hand had long since gone slack in his own. Even now the coppery heat of her blood ached in his teeth. He squeezed his eyes shut and buried his face in her hair, muffling a cry against her scalp. Though his body shook and trembled, his eyes could produce no tears.

Smaug’s body lay in the dirt nearby. Like Azog, he had not dissolved. Bard could feel his empty eyes staring in the dark. Perhaps he was not truly dead. But Bard had done all he could. At last, he could rest.

A light touch brushed over his forearm. His head jerked up as he saw Sigrid grasping at his hand once more. Her eyes were still closed, her skin icy to the touch. Bard pressed a hand to the side of her face, his lips drawn into a painful smile. “Stay still, Sig. Stay still.”

He felt a tremor move through her body. Her heart was slowing down. Bard reached down to stroke her hair, like he used to when she was younger and didn’t yet know how to cope with her nightmares. “Sigrid—look at me.” Her eyes cracked open, full of pain. Bard stared into them as if he could hold them open through his sheer desperation alone. “You look at me. I’m so sorry. _Don’t go_.”

She did not respond. After a while, her eyes drifted shut again. Her heart beat a slow weak rhythm against his skin, and he clung to her body as if he could keep the life from seeping out of it.

The air felt thick and syrupy against his skin—dully, he realized it was almost dawn. The sky was turning a deep clear blue—in the east, he watched the sky blush deepen. Slowly, the grief snarled around his heart stilled. He held Sigrid tighter. He was not afraid. He had not expected to ever see the sun again. It was a better end than he could have hoped to find, waiting just over the horizon.

Golden light breached the hill like a bolt. It swept over Smaug’s body, and Bard watched as the grey flesh began to smoke and dissolve. The day would cleanse the terrors of the night. Where the sunlight touched his own skin it began to prickle and burn. There was no escaping it. Bard didn’t want to.  

As the agony of the dawn washed over Bard’s face, he closed his eyes and let himself burn.  


	30. Chapter 30

There was nothing at all sinister about the farmhouse. A small cluster of trees leaned around it at the end of the long drive, but beyond that there were only fields. Years ago there had been corn or wheat, but nature had reclaimed its own; now they had been overtaken by weeds, rotting fence posts, deer. A handful of neighbors down the road, not close enough to be a problem. The location had been Bilbo’s suggestion. He had told Thranduil what needed to be done, and Thranduil had done it.

Strange, to think of it as a home. They had stayed there for two months, and yet each night Thranduil awoke surprised to still find himself there.

The space was smaller than he was used to, a single floor and the cellar where he and Tauriel slept, a small kitchen with a mint green refrigerator, a living room whose furniture seemed to sag to the floor through years of over-use, two bedrooms and a walk-in closet which Tilda had claimed as her own. Only one bathroom. It was lucky that out of the five occupants, only three had need of it.

It was in the kitchen that Thranduil waited in the evening, standing very quietly as he listened for the phone. He only moved to turn his head, once every sixty seconds, to watch the hand of the clock finish completing another halting circle over the twelve. It would be soon. Soon, if it came at all. He let his eyes trail blankly over the surfaces in the kitchen, the vinyl countertops, the mute fridge with no magnets or pictures. The kitchen itself was a stranger, an empty face unfamiliar to him.

The phone rang.

Thranduil seized it from the cradle before the first trill had ended. The silence in the kitchen was deafening. He stood with the phone pressed to his ear, no rush of breathing, no pounding of his heart. Just a terrible stillness and waiting, waiting for the voice to speak.

“Not much has changed.”

Bilbo’s voice sounded tired. Not as tired as it had been in the early weeks, when Thranduil had called him every day, every hour, asking the same questions over and again. Thranduil slowly let himself sink into a chair at the kitchen table, wooden, paint peeling. He scratched at it under his nails. “When will the lack of progress become a problem?”

Bilbo sighed, a static rush in Thranduil’s ear. “Not yet. He’s made some small improvement since our last conversation. It will just take time.”

The white paint was coming away from the wooden chair like dead skin. “Is he eating?”

“As best he can. Drinking too. Less often.”

“Can I see him?” The question was inevitable. It slid from Thranduil’s lips almost unconsciously, too quickly and carelessly but inevitable in the same way.

Another sigh. “It’s the same answer, Thranduil. Not yet.”

“What about the children?” Thranduil was pushing now, knowing it and not caring. “Maybe it would help, to see them. Worth a try, surely.”

A longer pause. Bilbo’s voice, when he spoke, was very careful. “It’s not a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“Because I am the doctor currently overseeing his care, and I say it isn’t. Now I should go. I have more work to do.”

“Wait.” From the tone in Bilbo’s voice Thranduil was worried he might delay his next call. He remembered the hours he’d spent waiting in front of the phone, after Bilbo warned him that if he kept calling he’d cut the phone lines. As more time passed, it should have made the waiting easier. It hadn’t. The waiting was unbearable. “Is he there? With you, now?”

Bilbo hesitated. “Yes,” he said at last.

“What’s he doing?”

In the pause Thranduil could imagine Bilbo’s head turning, a quick dart of his eyes. “Just sitting in a chair.”

“May I speak with him?” Before the silence on the end of the line could materialize into a no, Thranduil continued. “Just for a minute. If he doesn’t wish to speak with me I’ll not ask again.”

“I don’t think—it’s not that he—“ Bilbo broke off. Thranduil worried his fingernails into the paint, which felt as soft as clay. “Very well. I’m putting him on.”

Thranduil leaned forward, his body suddenly reacting as if sensing prey nearby. He felt a prickle over his skin, his throat as taught as a garrote. The silence on the end of the line had deepened, stretched, become interminably long. “Bard?”

Nothing. No word, no sound, no hint of recognition.

“Bard.” Thranduil forced his hand on the receiver to relax, the plastic sighing in relief. There were gouges in the table now, deep grooves. “It’s me. Can you hear me?” Silence. “Can you speak?”

Silence.

“Bard? Please say something. I need—I need to hear your voice. Tell me to never speak to you again. Bard, please.

“Bard—”

*

Three times a day Thranduil would take food into the first bedroom, the one whose door was always slightly ajar, almost closed. He brought soups heated out of a can, applesauce, juices, watery mashed potatoes. He watched Sigrid swallow them all, methodically, tastelessly, never leaving enjoying it or leaving any behind. He changed her bandages once a day now, but the process was still painful. It would take time.

The skin beneath was healing, a mottle of bruises and tender pink new skin. The wound on her neck was not obviously a bite mark unless you knew to look. Every time Thranduil uncovered it he felt a sick pit in the bottom of his stomach. He remembered the first time he had seen her, after the battle. He’d been only half-conscious himself, choking down what little blood rations they had left, what little his throat could swallow. When he’d seen her carried into the caves on the makeshift stretcher between Bilbo and Bain, he’d truly thought she was dead. Beorn had followed them, a large bundle wrapped in cloth held in his arms. When he lay the body beside Thranduil and gently removed the cover, the face beneath it had been burned and blistered almost beyond recognition. Almost.  

“How is she?” Tauriel was waiting outside the door as he exited, her voice low and careful.

Thranduil held the empty tray in his hands level. “You could ask her yourself.”

He expected her to refuse. But Tauriel looked at the door, hesitated, then stepped inside. Thranduil heard no voices as he continued down the hallway, just the creak of the chair near the bed.

*

There was a stump in the back yard within sight of the kitchen windows, and often Bain would go out and chop wood. The block was an ugly remnant of a large tree, reminding Thranduil too much of an execution block, and from the way Bain sent the axe slamming down he may as well have been beheading vicious criminals rather than splitting firewood. When he was done he stacked it neatly by the side of the house. By the time winter returned they’d have a pyre’s worth for each of them. At times when Thranduil lay in his bed in the cellar waiting for the sun to set, he could sometimes hear the hollow fall of the axe against the stump, the brittle splitting of wood.

Bain had thrown himself into the practicalities around the house. Thranduil sometimes walked into the kitchen in the middle of the night to find Bain with his back bent over the floors, scrubbing them with a cleaning solution they’d found under the sink whose fumes were nearly unbreathable. Thranduil rose one evening to find the grass of the lawn perfectly cut. Bain worked well into the night restoring the garden shed, patching leaks, chasing out spiders.

Tilda was quiet. Bain mentioned that she was gone most of the day, wandering around the land of the farm and then off of it, going as far as her legs would take her before turning back for home. At night Thranduil would forbid her to leave, but he’d hear her light footsteps on the porch in the morning, and know there was nothing he could do.

*

“I cannot help them,” he had said in the early days, sitting stiffly at the table, the sound of crickets pouring in through the screened-in windows. He held the phone to his ear like a gun. “I do not know what they need—what they want—“

Bilbo had chuckled wearily in response. “If you’re asking for parenting advice I’m about as qualified to give it as you are to receive it. Keep them safe. Keep them fed and sheltered. Speak to them, if they’ll let you. But don’t think you can replace their father.”

Thranduil had considered hanging up. Smashing the phone into its cradle until there was nothing but shards of plastic and a dull pain that would fade all too quickly. Instead he had merely waited through Bilbo’s patient and unkind silence on the other end of the phone, until he could speak levelly once more. “I haven’t cooked in almost a century.”

This time Bilbo’s laugh was almost genuine. “I’ll send you some recipes. I’m sure Bain can help. Ask _them_ what they need, and listen to what they say.”

Thranduil had sat down with Bain that same night, waiting patiently as Bain scrubbed at a stain on the table until he realized the boy wasn’t going to stop. “What do you need, Bain?” he asked quietly.

Bain glanced up at him only briefly. There was no anger in his eyes. “My father,” he said simply, and returned to scrubbing.

Thranduil hadn’t asked again.

*

Most nights Tauriel spent prowling around the perimeter of the house, a shadow moving against the windows—one window in particular. If Sigrid sensed Tauriel’s wary vigil, she did not comment on it. Thranduil would catch himself calling to her in his mind, not the fierce summons of the past but merely a keening echo, _come in, come back inside._ Tauriel rarely heeded it.

When she did, they merely sat together quietly, both waiting for something that they knew wasn’t going to come. It was worse, really, to bear that together.

*

“How is he?” Sigrid’s voice was a terrible rasp. It clearly pained her to speak, and she did not do it often. As such, it was impossible for Thranduil not to respond.

“Bilbo says he is improving,” Thranduil said. He offered her a bowl of soup, which she accepted but did not begin to eat.

“But how _is_ he?” Sigrid pressed. “What’s happening to him? Is he—himself?”

Thranduil picked through his words carefully, and found he had none to suffice. “I haven’t seen him,” he said at last. “Bilbo said it wasn’t a good idea.”

Sigrid’s face contorted. Distress was carved deeper into her skin than her age should have allowed. “You haven’t seen him? At all?” Her voice was becoming rougher by the instant. To Thranduil’s tired horror he saw tears begin to shine in her eyes. “Oh god,” she whispered. “He really isn’t going to come back, is he?”

Thranduil took the bowl of soup back from her hands before it spilled. He set it on the bedside table as Sigrid rolled over onto her side, giving no sign of pain. He sat quietly beside her for a while before getting up to leave. When he returned later the soup was untouched.

He stared at the bowl, the huddled curve of Sigrid’s back beneath the blankets. He stood in the door a long time. The soup. The wrinkle of the blankets. All so vivid, so undeniably real. In that moment it was true: Bard was never coming back. Thranduil could feel that possibility stretching out from this moment as if it had already happened. As if this was a night in a life lived much further ahead, unmoving, unchanging, just another day spent waiting.

He left the room, picked up the phone, dialed. He did not wait for an answer when the ringing stopped, and the other line clicked into existence. “I need to see him, Bilbo. I’m begging you.”

There was nothing else to say, nothing more to offer. As the silence from the other end of the phone grew longer Thranduil leaned forward to rest his forehead on the doorframe, feeling its cool unyielding pressure on his skin. If Bilbo refused him, there was nothing he could do. Even if he drove there to hammer on the door in person, Bilbo need only withhold an invitation.

“Alright.” Bilbo’s voice was quiet, barely there at all. It tore through Thranduil like a fingernail through wet paper. “Alright, yes. I suppose it has to happen.”

Thranduil could say nothing. He was already moving with the phone still clenched in his hand, going to find Tauriel. “You have the address,” Bilbo was saying. “Pack for a couple of days, but be ready to leave much sooner. I still don’t think this is a good idea, Thranduil. But it’s not my decision to make.”

“I’ll be there,” Thranduil said. He hung up and stepped into the garden, where Tauriel was waiting, mute and restless, waiting for him to tell her what she already knew.

 

*

The cottage squatted on the banks of a creek, moonlight pale and silvery on the rippling surface of the water. Thranduil arrived in the early hours of the morning, after driving the whole night through. There were no other houses on the rough gravel road which brought him there—no sign of people at all. As Thranduil stepped out of his car, his instincts prickled like the slow passage of a spider underneath his skin. It was not safe here. Not for anyone.

Stepping up to the door he saw there were wind chimes among the grass along the outside of the house, as if they all had fallen there. Perhaps to delay the sick and unfamiliar fear that rose in his breast, Thranduil stooped down to pick one up. It gave a little tinkle as he lifted it up to the light. A moment later the door opened and Bilbo stepped outside.

“Give that here, if you don’t mind. Thank you.” He set the chime down quietly on the window ledge. “The sound agitates him.”

Thranduil stared at him in blank incomprehension; Bilbo offered no further explanation. He looked more tired than he’d sounded on the phone, the bags under his eyes not concealed by his glasses, his hair flat and unwashed, his hands just the slightest bit shaky. It wasn’t just exhaustion; grief hung about him like a sour smell.

Bilbo studied Thranduil with a critical eye nonetheless. Whatever he saw did not seem to please him, but he stepped back all the same. “I suppose you’d better come in.”

The door was open. Thranduil only hesitated a moment before crossing the threshold. As he did, he nearly sagged against the doorframe. The scent was so familiar, so heady, it seemed to physically drag him back through time. _Bard_. He stopped and took a long inhale, closing his eyes, for a moment letting himself pretend. But underneath Bard’s familiar smell was something strange, unwholesome, sweet as rot.

There were two more doors on the other side of the room; one of them was ajar. Thranduil turned back to Bilbo. “Where is he?”

Bilbo smiled tightly. “Sleeping.”

“May I see him?”

“When he wakes up, I’ll see how he is.”

It wasn’t a yes. Thranduil resisted the urge to pace the floor. There was a chair near a kitchen table;  he could not bring himself to do more than stand with his hand clenching its back. “Does he know that I’m here?”

Bilbo hesitated. “I told him you were coming.” That wasn’t a yes either. So much was left unsaid between Bilbo’s words. Thranduil wanted to shake him, to push past the doors and go looking for Bard himself, to tear the place apart until he found him and took him home.

He forced himself to sink down into the chair instead. Bilbo nodded in satisfaction. “Good. Stay here until it’s time.”

*

The wait seemed to go on forever. Thranduil forced himself to sit quietly, his fingers drumming on his knees, then on the tabletop, then laced to bind them still. He studied the features of the room, the potbelly stove, the cot shoved into the corner looking strange and out of place. When the door opened behind him he leapt to his feet, a clean white flare of hope shooting through him—but though the face that met his eyes was familiar, it was not the one he wanted to see.

“Oh,” Bofur said, blinking in surprise. “Hello. I can’t say I expected to see you here.”

Thranduil slowly sank back into the chair. “Likewise.”

Bofur sidled into the room and closed the door behind him. Despite his affectation of ease, Thranduil saw the way his fingers fidgeted nervously with the hem of his clothing, the way he kept adjusting his hat as he leaned on the kitchen counter. “I’m here helping Bilbo out,” he said lightly.

“What exactly do you do?”

“Oh, lots of little things. I go for supplies sometimes. Patrol the area. That sort of thing.”

Thranduil stared at him through narrowed eyes. He did not believe that Bilbo would keep Bofur here to do anything less than something the human could not do by himself. Something requiring a vampire’s strength and speed. Again Thranduil’s eyes turned to the door that Bilbo had walked through. Understanding slowly crept over him, though he did not let it touch his face.

“Is he really such a danger?” Thranduil made no effort to hide the bitterness in his voice.

Bofur looked down. “It’s difficult to know, yet,” he said. “Mostly he’s quiet. But other times…” He spread his hands. Thranduil asked no more, and after a moment longer Bofur saw himself out without another word, leaving Thranduil in silence and solitude once again.

It was longer still before Bilbo stepped back into the room. This time Thranduil remained seated, staring up at Bilbo blankly.

“He’s awake,” Bilbo said. “You can see him now.”

Thranduil stepped up to the door, laid his hand on the knob. He could feel Bilbo’s eyes on him. Before turning it, Thranduil looked back at him, suddenly unnerved. “What should I do?” he said softly.

Bilbo shook his head. “I have no idea. But if something goes wrong, I’ll be right out here.”

If Thranduil himself were in trouble there was hardly anything Bilbo could do. Unless it was Bard himself who might also be in danger. Steeling himself, Thranduil turned the handle and stepped inside.

The room beyond water utterly dark. The windows had been covered in cloth, boards nailed over them from the inside. It took a moment for Thranduil’s eyes to adjust. A cot like the one in the previous room slumped against the wall, the covers disturbed and wrinkled as if from agitated sleep. There was a smell like raw meat, undercut by antiseptic and bile. In the corner, a chair. On the chair, a figure.

Thranduil stepped inside. He was vaguely aware of Bilbo closing the door behind him. Now the darkness was almost complete, but for the edges that crept in from the cracks of the door. Thranduil let his eyes adjust before he moved, stepping up to a small lantern on the bedside, fumbling it on. A dull yellow light filled the room and illuminated Bard’s face.

Seeing it after so long was enough to make Thranduil remember what it was like to need to breathe. The relief lasted only as long as the flare of a match, before it vanished once again. Bard was turned to the side from where Thranduil was standing, his shoulders hunched slightly, his eyes staring at something on the opposite wall. When Thranduil followed his gaze he realized there was nothing there. His expression was not vacant; merely cold, blank, closed.

Beorn had found Bard and Sigrid in the late morning. By then, Bard had been exposed to the sunlight for hours. It was the serum which had saved him. The change had not been complete when Bard ingested it; the serum halted it in his veins. It had been just enough, Bilbo assured him, to prevent Bard from being immolated alive when the sunlight touched him. Or at least, it had prevented him from dying. Even after two months, Bard’s face was scarred in places and still livid in others, his body struggling between unnatural healing and succumbing to its wounds.   

 “Bard.” The man’s name was ragged on his tongue. It provoked no response. Slowly Thranduil took a step forward, and then another. Bard’s smell was stronger here, so familiar Thranduil wanted little more than to step forward and bury his face in the man’s shoulder, breathing him in. But there was something in the air, a feeling as much as a scent, that held him back. A sense of wrongness.

“Bard…” he sank down onto the edge of the bed, mere feet away from the man. He was quiet, so very quiet. His breathing was hardly there. Thranduil found himself listening for it, a growing sense of horror in his chest. He could feel the man’s heat. Surely he wasn’t—Bilbo _had_ said—

He could hold back no longer. He reached out and grasped Bard’s wrist.

At once a ripple of movement went through Bard’s body, a shudder that became a turning of his head, a jolt as he locked Thranduil’s gaze. For a moment he was his old self, confused, exhausted, afraid. Thranduil saw the shape of his name form on Bard’s lips, then go unspoken. They stared at each other a moment longer, until Thranduil felt through Bard’s wrist the beating of his heart, the way it skipped and fell silent and then jolted awake again the way no living heart should have endured.

Then the eyes that met his own hardened. Bard pulled his hand away, turned his face back to the wall. He wrapped his arms around himself like he was trying to save the last bits of warmth he could, holding them tight.  

“ _Leave me_.”

*

Bilbo was waiting at the table when Thranduil came back out again. He sat down in one of the chairs across from the man without a word. For a long while he sat staring at the grain of the table, unable to move himself to motion or speech. After a while Bilbo got up, began bustling around the kitchen, heating water, dropping a tea bag into a cup. At last he returned, a mug in his hands, and set it before himself with a heavy sigh.

 “Bard _was_ turned,” Bilbo began at last. “I never intended the serum to be a cure for vampirism. I still can’t fully explain what’s happening to him.”

Thranduil lifted his eyes to Bilbo. His face was utterly calm. “Try.”

Bilbo drew a breath, shifted his mug in his hands. “It’s possible that Bard’s body hadn’t finished dying yet. The serum served to cut him off from Smaug’s influence, which was a large portion of what was, ah, influencing his behavior. It’s even possible that imbibing Sigrid’s blood—his own bloodline—could have somehow, I don’t know, kick-started his body to life once more.” Bilbo spread his hands helplessly. “You see I’m grasping at straws here.”

 “You should have told me.”

“Yes. I know. I didn’t know how.”

“But he _is_ alive.”

“…Not exactly.” Bilbo drank his tea, winced at the temperature. Thranduil resisted the urge to knock it from his hands, to watch it scald the man’s face. “You saw what Smaug did to him. Those wounds would have killed him, if Smaug hadn’t begun the change. But now, his body can’t decide what it wants to be—it’s trying to heal itself the way a vampire would, but it’s also still fighting to _live_. His body is too damaged to live, but too alive to complete the change.”

Thranduil could recall how it felt to be turned. The worst part was the in-between, the moment when his body was still alive but dying, and his unlife was inside of him gestating like a fetus, heavy and dark and unknown. He could imagine what it would be like to be trapped in such a state. The thought made his hands clench on the table. “What have you been doing for him?”

“I’ve tried most things I could think of. Some drugs to try and regulate his heartrate and breathing, get them to the point that maybe things will tip over. I also tried feeding him blood.” At Thranduil’s expression he shook his head. “Just animal. Bofur has been very helpful in that regard. The problem is that he’s now refusing to drink it.”

“Has it helped?”

“To an extent. He can’t seem to keep much down. Sometimes the blood seems to restore him, but other times he’ll simply gag on it. The same with food. His body isn’t functioning properly, it can’t digest it. But it still needs nutrients. On top of that he’s extremely light sensitive—you remember what the sunlight did to him when we found him with Sigrid. And… well. You’ve seen him now.”

Thranduil pressed a hand to his temple. “He didn’t appear to be suffering.”

“No, I suppose not. It was bad, in the early days. But now…” Bilbo shrugged helplessly. “Perhaps it’s a coping mechanism. Perhaps not. Either way, he’s gone far into himself. Perhaps too far.”

Thranduil stared at Bilbo frankly. “How can I help?” he said. “Please tell me. You know I would do anything.”

Bilbo looked at him with pity in his eyes. “What happened to him… it isn’t just going to go away. It will take time. And even then, the man you know might be gone. It’s best that you try to start accepting that now.”

Thranduil sat in silence for a long time until he was certain he could speak without violence. “I can’t do that. And I can’t stay away any longer.”

A bitter smile touched Bilbo’s lips. “No, I suppose not.”

*

The visits became a routine, falling into place like worn puzzle pieces into the strange patterns of Thranduil’s life. He came once every two weeks, for as long as Bilbo would let him stay. Sometimes it was days. Other times, only hours. Once Thranduil had arrived only to have Bilbo turn him away on the porch. From the back room had been only the sound of shuffling and a strange animal moan. Bofur had needed to physically pull Thranduil away from the door to stop him from opening it, seeing what was inside.

It wasn’t always like that. There were times when Thranduil would sit quietly at Bard’s side, speaking a few words that went unanswered, simply sharing his company. It was far from easy. At times he wanted to grab Bard’s shoulders and shake him, to dig his fingers into the man’s arms until he was forced to share some reaction. What Thranduil would have given for a cry of pain, a curse, a sharp look. Most of the time Bard scarcely acknowledged he was there.

“Can we go to him?” Bain had asked, his hands tight on his younger sister’s shoulders as they both stared up at Thranduil with pleading eyes.

“Soon,” Thranduil said softly. “He just need more time.”

It was not long after that when Bard attacked him. It happened on a night that began much like the others; Bard was quiet, sitting on the edge of his bed as Thranduil came in. Normally Thranduil would have taken the chair. This time he sank down at Bard’s side on the bed, closer than he usually would. Sometimes Bard’s skin was as cold as ice, but that night it gave off a feverish heat.

Bard’s hands tightened somewhat as Thranduil settled beside him, but that was his only response. As usual Thranduil had the sense not that he was sitting beside an empty shell; that Bard was there, somewhere in the flesh, and was merely waiting to be alone to come out again. As wary as a wild animal.

Thranduil was tired of waiting.

“Bard,” he said, his voice calm and even. “I know you can hear me.”

No response. Unsurprising, and hardly enough to dishearten Thranduil now. He turned to look into the man’s face, whose eyes stared straight ahead, a faint frown on his brow.

“I know you were hurt,” Thranduil said. As he spoke his eyes inevitably wandered to the scar that still stretched across Bard’s neck. Thranduil himself had suffered similar disfigurement at Bard’s hands. A regimen of blood had healed him fully in less than a week. But Bard’s skin was still puffy and inflamed even where the sun’s ravages had faded, the flesh unwilling or unable to heal. “Very badly. But it doesn’t have to define you. You can heal, move on. If you’ll just let us help you.”

Still nothing. Thranduil’s heart twisted painfully. “Don’t you want to get better?” he demanded. “Don’t you want to come back? Think of your children, Bard. They still need you.” He couldn’t hold himself back any longer. He reached out to seize Bard’s hand.

At once a tremor went through the man’s body. His eyes flickered. Thranduil felt his muscles tense, like an animal ready to spring. His own instincts had him bristling in response before he could quell the action. “Don’t,” he hissed. His grip on Bard’s hand tightened. “Don’t do this. Look at me, Bard. You know me.” Bard tried to twist away, a faint growl in the back of his throat. Thranduil refused to let go. “Look at me!” he cried, his voice deafening in the small room. “Just _look_!”

And then Bard turned on him, teeth and nails flashing out, and for a moment Thranduil did not react—did not think Bard would truly hurt him, not now, not again. But then the man’s teeth, blunter though they were now, sank into his arm and _ripped_ with animal frenzy, and Thranduil had to tear him off his flesh like a dog sent him for the kill, sending Bard tumbling backwards against the wall with a thud, and before Thranduil could speak past the icy grip of regret seizing around his throat, could say he was sorry and ask if Bard was okay, the man was throwing himself to his feet and lunging once again, nothing human in his eyes.

Thranduil escaped the room and slammed the door shut behind him, feeling the impact of Bard’s body striking it again and again. It was a long time, before the relief of silence from the other side of the door.

He did not return for three weeks—it was as long as he could go before he broke down and called Bilbo, begging once again to return. Bilbo allowed it. When Thranduil arrived Bard was silent once again, lying with his back to the door, not moving or speaking, though Thranduil sat beside his bed until he felt the dull amber of morning hardening in his veins.

*

“How is he?” Sigrid finally asked the question on a cool evening in late spring, after Tauriel has helped her limp out to the front porch. Rather than risk the intimacy of sitting beside her, Tauriel had taken to prowling around the yard within hearing range, if not within Sigrid’s human sight.

Thranduil sat beside her, watching moths batter themselves against the panes of the porch light until they managed to slip through a gap in the pane and meet a fiery oblivion. He had been waiting for Sigrid to ask for a long time; Bain had done so the moment Thranduil told him that he had finally seen their father. It was hard to know how much to lie, whether it was a kindness or a terrible cruelty.

“Hurt,” he said. “Badly so. But Bilbo believes there is hope.”

“But we aren’t allowed to visit him.”

“Not yet.”

Sigrid stared up at him, her eyes dark with distrust and a pain which still had her firmly in its grasp. The bandage taped against her neck was like a white patch of nothingness over her flesh, a hole that would never be filled. “You’re afraid he might hurt us, aren’t you? That he might still be the way Smaug made him.”

Under her gaze Thranduil could not lie. “The possibility is too great to ignore. But, in time… he will recover. Soon. I’m certain of it.”

The platitudes fell numbly form his lips. He was not certain he believed them himself. Sigrid nodded shortly, as if he’d merely confirmed what she already knew. “And have _you_ seen him start to improve?”

Thranduil looked down at his hands. His fingers looked long and ungainly in the yellow porch light. He remembered the blank look in Bard’s eyes, the unending silences. “No,” he said softly. “I haven’t.” He tilted his head forward, staring at the slats of the porch between his shoes.

To his surprise Sigrid’s hand entered his field of vision and slid into his own. She squeezed his fingers once, gentle but firm. “Keep trying,” she said. When he looked up her eyes were gleaming, but there was hope there as well as pain. “For us, if nothing else.”

After a moment Thranduil returned her grasp with a strength that seemed to surprise her. “I will,” he said, and that time, he believed it. 

*

Thranduil did not try to speak anymore. He brought Bard a little food to struggle to eat, water and cloths to wash with. He applied some human ointment to the still-livid burns. Most times he would merely sit at Bard’s bedside, and gently take his hand. Though Bard would often tense at the contact, he rarely pulled away. When he did, Thranduil let him. When he didn’t, Thranduil ran his fingertips over Bard’s palm, trailing them over the creases and folds on the inside of his fingers, gently lacing their fingers together.

It was so little compared to what they used to have. And yet it became everything. As time went on Bard stopped tensing at the touch of another person. He simply sat quietly, letting Thranduil trace old scars, tendons, feel the knob of joints shift beneath the skin, the internal mechanisms that made up Bard’s hands, the tools he’d once used to fix, to create, to love. When he was back at the house with the children, Thranduil would lie on his cot in the basement and trace his own hands the same way, following the heart-line, the life-line, pretending they belonged to someone else—someone who still had use of either.

*

There came a day when Tilda did not come home from her wandering.

Thranduil woke, hours before sundown, to the sound of fists beating on the outside of his door. He rose as quickly as he was able with the weight of the sun still pressing down on him. On the other cot, Tauriel did not so much as stir. “Close the outer door,” he called over the pounding. The noise immediately stopped. Only when Thranduil heard the telltale creak of the storm doors being shut, and saw the faint line of fiery light under the door evaporate, did he allow himself to throw open the door and face Bain’s pale face.

“Tilda’s gone,” he said. “I haven’t seen her since morning. At first I thought she was just walking the way she usually does, but then she didn’t come back for lunch and she hasn’t shown up for dinner—” Bain had to stop and take in a shaky breath, his eyes wide and round. “What do we do?” he said helplessly.

Thranduil needed Bard. Needed him then more than he could consciously understand. If Thranduil stepped out of this room and into the sunlight, he would wither into nothing but ash and smoke in seconds. He could only stare at the boy before him, a boy thrown into adulthood like a stone into the surf.

“Have you told Sigrid?” he asked at last.

Bain shook his head. “I wasn’t sure if I should. I know she’d try to go look for her.”

It was true. Sigrid was not yet strong enough to leave the house for long periods, though that would not stop her from trying. Then they would have two fragile humans stumbling around in the fields, beyond Thranduil’s help.

“Should we call the police?” Bain asked.

“No,” Thranduil said immediately. At the look on Bain’s face he forced himself to reconsider. “Not yet. If we get the authorities involved, they’ll start asking more questions than we’re able to answer. They may want to know where your father is, or question what makes me qualified to be your guardian. We call them as a last resort.”

Bain still looked hesitant. “Then what can we do? I’ve looked all over.”

Thranduil stepped back into the cellar and walked over to the desk he’d carried into the cellar, so that he might occupy himself in the sleepless hours before daylight overtook him. He quickly wrote on a piece of paper and tore it free, handing it to Bain. “These are the phone numbers of the houses closest to us. Call them all and ask if they’ve seen a girl of Tilda’s description. If none of those work…” He took the paper back, added a couple more. “This is the number for the urgent care center in the closest town; Tilda may have been hurt. By the time you finish that it should be dark. I will find her if you do not.”

He could only hope it was true.

They did find her, of course. She had walked all the way to the farms just outside of town, trying to hitchhike. A neighbor had picked her up and brought her home, trying to figure out where she had come from—Thranduil had made it a point that no one know there were children here, lest questions start to arise. Tilda had refused to tell her, and the woman had been astute enough to convince her to stay a while longer. After Bain called and asked where she was it was a simple matter of going to get her.

Thranduil drove over as soon as it was dark enough. He had Tauriel accompany him, in the hopes of appearing more like an ordinary family—he made her promise not to leave the car or speak. When he pulled up to the farmhouse the front door opened to reveal a thin older woman in a yellow apron with her hand on Tilda’s shoulder. The woman was smiling in concern; Tilda’s face was stony.

“Thank you for looking after her,” Thranduil said. The woman had to give Tilda a little push to send her trooping up to Thranduil. Tilda had her arms crossed over her chest and did not meet his gaze. She went to go wait in the back of the car without a word. Tauriel gave a little wave from the passenger seat.  

Thranduil was turning to meet her when the woman said, “Wait a moment, if you please.” He turned back to see her picking at the pouch of her apron, her lined face worried. “Is this the first time she’s tried to run away?”

Thranduil blinked. “Run away? This isn’t—she was simply acting out.”

“Mister, I don’t mean to pry. But that little girl there wanted me to take her right to the train station. If I hadn’t stopped her I’m not sure how far she would have gotten.” Behind the worry in her face, Thranduil saw something worse—the germ of suspicion. He knew it would only grow as soon as he left. All he could do now was try and stunt it as best he could.

“She and her siblings are staying with my wife and I, while their father recovers from a serious illness,” he said flatly. “It’s difficult for the children to cope. I assure you, this won’t happen again.”

He left then, driving back down the dark country roads, the corn racing by on either side and Tilda turning her whole body to the window, facing the darkness and the grainy stalks as they whipped into the night. Tauriel stayed silent, feigning disinterest. It was only a matter of time now before someone came around asking questions about the children that shouldn’t be there. Questions about where their father was, why they weren’t in school, and of course, how Thranduil was caring for them. The thought of how to face it was too exhausting for him right now. He merely shifted his position on the wheel and spoke straight ahead to the rushing darkness. “Where were you trying to go, Tilda?”

He didn’t expect her to speak. When she did, her voice was high and proud. “Anywhere but here.”

He didn’t ask her anything else.

For a time after that, he was afraid of going back to Bard. He felt as if he should stay, as if his mere helpless presence could piece together the remnants of Bard’s life, knitting Sigrid’s neck and Bain’s helplessness and Tilda’s directionless anger. But of course, that was futile. He could not be their father. He was much better at tearing things apart.

“I’m afraid for them,” he said. He was sitting on the edge of the bed while Bard lay on his back—he squeezed Bard’s hand gently. “They need _you_ , Bard.” But how many times could the man’s children draw him back from over the edge? Perhaps it was no longer enough. Perhaps Bard was tired. Perhaps he needed something more than obligation, more even than love, to bring him back this time. Thranduil slowly loosened his grip on Bard’s hand, and stood to leave without a word of goodbye.

“Don’t go.”

The words were spoken quietly, almost in resignation. But they were real, as real as the tightening of Bard’s grip on his hand. Thranduil sank back into the chair, awash in an emotion he could not fully understand; it resembled gratitude, anguish, a sharp and painful joy. He returned Bard’s grip with his own, so hard it probably hurt, but Bard did not complain and he did not pull away. They sat like that until Bard slipped into the closest approximation of sleep he seemed able to. The sun was high. From behind the door there was the sound of Bilbo shuffling around, the smell of tea. In that moment, Thranduil was absolutely certain that Bard would come back to himself. Time didn’t feel like such an enemy then.

Thranduil slowly lowered himself onto the floor by Bard’s bed, never once letting go of his hand. He let himself drift as well, not sleeping, not unconscious, pinned to the world by the warmth of the hand in his own, even though it was slack and empty.

*

From then on Thranduil never knew what to expect when he opened the door to Bard’s room. There were days when he would refuse to talk at all, pushing the world away even as it drifted back to him. Other days when he might turn as Thranduil came into the room, offer a weak impersonation of a smile. They could speak a little, then, but never of the things Thranduil wanted to know. He burned to ask Bard how he was feeling, what he could do to help—but nothing was surer to shut the man down faster than forcing him to discuss his condition. They talked about the children a little more, but mentioning them seemed to twist something in Bard’s heart like a stake that only half-killed him.

Instead, Thranduil told stories. He summoned up what little of his human life he could remember, as if by reaching back for that strange warmth and weakness himself, Bard could do the same. Thranduil spoke more about his sire—no tales of killing, but rather the bright clear moments that shone like gems in his memory. Running through the moonlight across a mountain ridge. Returning to the same city again and again, seeing how the centuries had changed it. Playing foolish tricks on excitable humans they were too sated to kill. Bard listened carefully, even though he did not always respond. Sometimes he would even laugh; Thranduil savored the sound, wondering each time whether it would be the last.

“Tell me about the others,” Bard said one night. “The humans that came before me.”

Thranduil was sitting against the wall across from Bard’s chair. He stared at Bard in faint surprise. Of all the questions the man could ask, he had not been expecting that. “What do you want to know?”

Bard shrugged. He appeared too tired for artifice. “Everything. But I’ll settle for whatever you can tell me.”

Thranduil sighed. His eyes closed as he crossed his arms, the gesture subconscious and strangely vulnerable, as if he was trying to hold some memory of warmth against his chest. “How can I sum up all those lives without simply making a hollow outline? I’ve already lost so much of them, so many pieces of the past. I can recall any part of them in near-perfect detail—a smile, a laugh, the way their hands might have wrapped around a cup of tea. But those little fragments never add up to them being here. It’s like trying to see them through a keyhole, only a glimpse visible at a time.”

When Thranduil looked up again, Bard’s eyes were a faint gleam in the darkness, studying him. “I’m not certain why I chose them. If I had given them a choice, they would have refused the gifts I offered them. And yet by the end they were mine. To the very last.”

Bard said nothing. Thranduil wasn’t sure what he had expected, what he had wanted to hear. All he had left to offer was the truth.

There were bad nights. Thranduil would come in to find Bard rocking in the corner, growling, moaning, covering his head with his hands as if trying to keep something in, or something out. Thranduil had reached out to touch him during one of those episodes. His skin had been cold, colder than it ever should have been. Moments later Bard had recoiled, showing teeth that seemed to be bleeding from the gums. Thranduil had stayed with him, waiting on the other side of the room and trying to think if there was something, anything he could do. At last when Bard had gone still and quiet, Thranduil had carried him to the bed and laid him there. Through the rest of the day, he had appeared to be at peace. They did not speak of it again.

 “Would you like to go outside?” Thranduil asked one night. Bard had stared past him, at the door—with a sick twist in his stomach, Thranduil realized it was possible the man had not left this room once in all the months since he’d been brought here. Wordlessly, he stood and offered his hand. Part of him did not expect Bard to take it. But he did, his palm cold and dry, and Thranduil led him to the closed door. He simply waited, a support at Bard’s side, for the man to reach out and take the handle himself.

There were no lights on in the cabin—Bilbo and Bofur would be back soon. Thranduil walked at Bard’s side, a hand on his shoulder to steady him as they made their way for the front door. Cool night air lapped at their faces as they stepped onto the porch. Under the awning it was dark, but moonlight rippled through the summer leaves, scattering like pale fireflies across the ground.

Bard watched it for a long time, his expression far-away, tired. When he turned back to Thranduil, he spoke very quietly. “I’m ready to go back in, now.”

Thranduil led him back. When Bard sank down onto the bed he was unconscious almost instantly. Thranduil stroked his hair away from his brow, and resolved to show Bard the moonlight as often as he could stand it.  

*

As time went on, Thranduil pushed harder. Bard spoke more, moved more naturally—but the wounds on his body remained unhealed, and Bilbo told him that he was still struggling to choke down human food even when it made him sick. Thranduil watched the cold shivers pass over Bard’s skin, his body sweating as if in a fever and then going as dry and still as a husk. His heartbeat was like the tapping of an erratic bird against the inside of his skin. At times he would not breathe for hours, and then gasp as if he were being strangled. His mind was returning. His body was still broken.

Thranduil understood what Bard needed.

“You have to drink,” Thranduil said. Bilbo had given him a warm cup whose smell spoke volumes as to its contents, even though the plastic lid. It was so ridiculous he almost laughed—blood in a disposable coffee cup—but the longer he stared at it, untouched on Bard’s bedside, the less amusing it was.

Thranduil sighed in frustration. “What then? You stay like this forever?” He rose to his feet and began to pace, noting with detached interest the way that his sudden movement made Bard tense. “Your body is dying. It needs to heal. _Drink_.”

Bard stared at him with eyes rimmed red from lack of sleep, his jaw set. It was answer enough.

 “And why not?” Thranduil demanded, as if it were a regular conversation they were having rather than speaking almost solely to himself. “Don’t you want to get better?”

“Not like that,” Bard snapped. “Not like—the way I would be.”

Thranduil stared at him. Bard’s voice had startled him out of some kind of stupor. He stared at Bard, and this time he really looked. “What way? What are you saying?”

Bard’s hands were clenched on his knees as if he was afraid what he might do with them otherwise. “I can’t go back to the way he made me.”

Thranduil turned away, towards where the windows would be if they weren’t boarded up. “You’re afraid that drinking will complete the transformation.”

“Tell me I’m wrong.” It wasn’t spoken as a challenge. When Thranduil turned to face him again Bard’s eyes were almost pleading.

“I don’t know, Bard,” Thranduil said quietly. He walked over and sank down onto the bed beside him. Amazing, how after knowing the man for so long, something as simple as physical proximity could be as powerful as the earth itself tilting beneath his feet. The cup of blood sat on the bedside table, ridiculous and obscene.

“Smaug is dead,” he said quietly. At the words Bard seemed to shudder. “Your sire—no, listen to me, Bard. Your _sire_ is dead. The connection you felt with him is gone forever. In normal circumstances, it’s what would make the loss so terrible.”

Bard’s jaw was tight. “It was no connection,” he said. “It was—an invasion. He was in my head, perverting my thoughts, erasing who I was until there was nothing left he hadn’t touched. I was… nothing.”

Gingerly, Thranduil reached out to pry one of Bard’s hands away, lock it in his own grasp. “I don’t know what will happen,” he said softly. “I won’t lie to you. Once you do this—if you do this—it’s possible that the confusion your body is experiencing will go away. That you will—die, in a manner of speaking. And from that death you will rise again.”

Bard’s head hung on his neck as if it were about to snap. “I don’t want that,” he whispered.

Thranduil tightened his grip on Bard’s hand. “It might not happen that way,” he said quietly. “Right now, you aren’t truly dead—the transformation is incomplete. Once your body heals itself, once you are no longer actively dying...”

The words felt wrong in his mouth, unspoken promises coated with convenient half-truths. He remembered Bilbo’s words: _it isn’t just going to go away_. “Even if things don’t go back to normal,” Thranduil continued softly. “I can promise you I won’t let you become what Smaug made you a second time.”

Bard blinked up at him. His eyes scanned Thranduil for a stake. “You would do that?”

“I was prepared to before. I am now.”

Bard stared into his eyes. Thranduil held his gaze, though he felt as if the man was rooting around in his head for knowledge he couldn’t possibly glean. Or perhaps he could. Bard had seen through him in ways that no one else had.

A last he seemed satisfied by what he’d seen in Thranduil’s eyes; he stared down at their laced hands with a shaky breath. The first, perhaps, he had taken in a while. “Thank you.” His voice was ragged. “I believe you. It’s just—I can’t.”

Thranduil’s grip on his hand must have been bruising, but he could not make himself loosen it. “Don’t you want to see your children again?”

“How could I?” At once Bard was on his feet, tearing free of his grasp and facing Thranduil with his hands clenched at his sides. “After what I did to them—to Sigrid?” He turned away and covered his face with his hands. Thranduil slowly relaxed his posture from readiness to defend himself.

“How can I face her?” Bard whispered. “I—I as good as killed her. Every time she looks at me she’ll see a monster. It’s what _I_ see.”

Thranduil had to restrain himself from stepping forward, reaching out. “It’s not what I see.”

Bard laughed bitterly. “Yes. Well. You’re not exactly a good judge of that, are you?”

“On the contrary. I’d say I’m one of the best.” Thranduil forced a hard smile. “I know what evil is. I know _you_. And I know what it is to look at you as—“ Thranduil faltered. Bard’s shoulders were huddled against his words as if he were a terrible wind. “—as someone who cares for you,” he finished awkwardly. “Sigrid still loves you. She _wants_ to see you again. As do all of your children.”

Staring down at the floor, Bard’s face remained still. “What if I hurt them?”

“I won’t let you.”

“What if you can’t stop me?”

Thranduil laughed shortly. Their argument was ridiculous. Yet Bard’s eyes flashed dangerously—he thought Thranduil was laughing at _him_.

“You don’t think I could?”

At once Bard was on him. It happened without warning, faster than Thranduil could believe. Bard slammed into him, over him, his weight pinning him onto the floor and his hands on Thranduil’s wrists. He made to wrench them away and realized, with a lurch in his stomach, that Bard’s strength was greater than his own. The man’s face was inches from his own. Despite his supernatural strength, he was breathing—breathing hard. Thranduil could see, even in the half-light, that his pupils were blown out wide. It was impossible not to think about the night, all those months ago, when Thranduil had held Bard’s wrists in such a similar way.

“If I wanted to, I could kill you.” Bard was not speaking in facts, not threats. Thranduil felt a shiver of something move over his skin, starting from his exposed throat and traveling down his spine.

“Then I guess you don’t want to,” Thranduil breathed. He turned his head to catch Bard’s eyes, still and unafraid beneath him. “What do you want?”

Bard’s eyes darted, inevitably, to his lips. But in the next moment they slid to the side, to regard the coffee cup on the bedside table, white, unassuming, by now growing cool.

Slowly Bard slackened his grip, sat up and edged away so Thranduil had room to sit up. He pressed the heel of his palm against his forehead and closed his eyes. Thranduil had to resist the urge to press in close again, to pull Bard back on top of him.

“You were in control,” he said quietly. “You can’t deny that.”

Without opening his eyes Bard shook his head. “But what if that changes?”

Thranduil reached out and picked up the Styrofoam cup, popped the tab open to reveal a square of the dark liquid within. Its smell was velvety to his own nose, a faint temptation, but he saw Bard turn away and heard him choke. Thranduil moved closer to him on the bed, the cup in his hand. He reached out to take Bard’s hand, to press the cup into it. Only then did Bard look at him, and Thranduil saw his fear as clearly as if they had both stepped into the sun.

“If you can’t do this, there’s nothing else for you,” he said quietly. “You have to choose. Can you live like this forever?”

Bard stared at the cup in his hand, holding it on his own now. He raised it to his mouth, staring straight ahead. “Forever,” he repeated dully.

He drank.

*

The next few days were very, very bad. But out of the pain, the vomiting, the terror of a body driven between death and life and something else, things started to change.

Bard’s wounds began to heal. The red angry flesh became pink, and then scarred up into grooves that traced their way into Bard’s neck like the line of a knife through clay. The last of his burns disappeared or scarred over. His heartrate became more irregular, then steadied out—but rather than the even strong beats Thranduil was used to, it pumped as sluggishly as if Bard’s blood had turned to molasses. His breathing, on the other hand, grew short, with long gaps in between. He did not complete the change. Neither did he return to being human.

The first test was the windows. Bilbo recounted the process in detail. They took down the boards—the black cloth letting only a tiny amount of sunlight into the room. When Bilbo took them down Bard had screamed and cowered, but had not burned. It was a good sign, Bilbo said. The damage was largely psychological. But whether Bard’s body or his brain had decided sunlight was intolerable, Thranduil did not see much of a difference. He could not imagine the man locked away in the dark forever. In his mind when he saw Bard he was stepping in from a terrible brightness, joining him in the dark but merely passing through it, as much a part of the day as the night. Bilbo said it would likely get better with time. Thranduil was tired of hearing such sentiments.

Not long afterwards Bard began eating again. He choked down watery tea, soup, boiled vegetables. His body struggled, but persevered. He should have died from the time he spent unable to eat, but here he was, the color returning to his cheeks, his smell becoming something recognizable. He would leave the room on his own now, standing on the porch at night, but before long he would hurry back inside, long before the light of day began to blush against the sky.

He stopped refusing blood. When Thranduil pressed a fresh cup into his hands, he drank it without question. Bard never admitted to how it made him feel, but the pounding of his heart grew hard and fast whenever he drank. He had a taste for it still.

Thranduil told the children everything he could those days. It was nice to have good news. Tilda did not wander as far or long as she used to—Sigrid was eating ravenously now, as if some kind of link between her and Bard had been activated, their strength feeding each other. The children asked all the more often when they could see their father. That was the only question Thranduil could not accurately answer.

“Very soon,” he said, and realized it was a promise. But when he asked Bard, the man would only shake his head.

“Not yet,” he said, over and over.

“Then when? What should I tell them?” Thranduil demanded.

Bard looked at him with pain written on his face. “I can’t even stand the sunlight, Thranduil. Even I don’t know what I’m becoming. They wouldn’t want to see me like this.”

“They would, and they do,” Thranduil snapped. “You can’t make them wait for the man they used to know. He’s gone.”

He hadn’t mean for his words to cut so deeply. He had time to see the expression on Bard’s face crumble before the man turned away, covering his eyes with his hand. Unable to help himself, Thranduil sank down onto the bed with him, wrapped an arm around his shoulders. Bard sat quietly for a while before straightening, lowering his hands and wiping something away—tears. Thranduil almost smiled to see them. Not so long ago the man had been incapable of producing them.

Bard turned to look at him, exhausted and broken-down. “Am I not myself?” he asked.

Thranduil stared at him with a longing that tunneled around his chest searching for something that wasn’t there. “You’re different,” he said. “But you’re still you.”

At once Bard leaned in, too quickly and without grace, to press a kiss to Thranduil’s mouth. It didn’t last long—Bard’s stubble scraped over the skin of his jaw, his lips were fumbling, out of practice, an edge of desperation making it bitter and hard. Thranduil leaned into the kiss, chasing Bard’s mouth even as he pulled away, feeling as if a piece of him had been pulled back with it.

Bard stared down at his hands, clasped tightly in his lap where they couldn’t escape him. Slowly he forced them to open, like pale flowers against the darkness of the room.

“Okay,” he whispered at last. “Okay. Take me back to them.”


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well guys, here we are; the epilogue next week, and that's it. In the last author's note, I'll be posting a round-up of all the awesome mixes/art/graphics/etc that lovely readers have contributed over the span of this fic.

Morning bled in like a watercolor. Light diluted the dense black of the sky to a faint almost-green, a pale yellow dawn washing away the last of the night. Bard sat awake and watched it from the shadows of his room. Only one window was unbarred and open; the lingering night air played over his skin, smelling of pine and wet earth. With it came the terror, the dread of the coming light so strong it was all he could do not to leap up and slam the shutters closed.

The instinct was as powerful as the urge to yank his hand out of a hot fire—even when he told himself over and over that this time, he would not be burned. He had faced the sun before, sitting under the awning of the porch where it could not touch his skin directly. But today was different. Today it would be put to the test.

There was a soft knock on the door. For a while Bard sat quietly, with no desire for company. But when there was no sound of footsteps walking away, he let out a quiet sigh.

“Enter,” he called softly.

The door opened, and Bilbo stepped inside. He offered Bard a thin smile as he settled down on the edge of the bed, where the faint light from the window was strongest. Bard had pushed his chair to the further corner of the room, where the shadows clung to the dark wood and soothed his twitching skin.

“How do you feel?” Bilbo asked.

Bard thought about it. “Terrified,” he decided at last.

Bilbo’s mouth twisted wryly. “And are you ready?”

This time Bard did not answer. He took stock of himself—the beating of his heart, not steady but certainly constant, like the erratic ping of rain hitting a roof. He was clasping a wrist in one hand to monitor it, and the skin beneath his own fingers was cool, but not freezing. He took in a breath, and after a moment let it out. He had to remember to do that; it seemed his body had forgotten the necessity of breathing, but not of air. If he did not pay attention he was liable to forget, until the burning in his lungs had him gasping.

Finally, as he’d gotten in the habit of doing, he took a moment to evaluate whether he wanted to tear Bilbo’s throat out. He could feel, in a distant way, the heat radiating from his body; he could smell him, his hair and skin and blood, _yes_ , the blood’s constant drumbeat. There were times, in the earlier days, that he’d catch himself watching the leap of Bilbo’s pulse like a cat staring at the twitch of a string. He’d been disgusted, horrified with himself. But he had not been able to stop.

Now, Bard sat quietly attuned to Bilbo’s presence and felt no urge to lunge across the room and sink his teeth into Bilbo’s neck. He did feel a faint desire to move closer, like drawing to the warmth of a fire. He could resist it. But not ignore it.

“Why don’t you come sit on the porch?” Bilbo said kindly. “It faces north. There’ll be shade.”

Bard nodded and rose, slowly, carefully, not trusting his own limbs to do what he thought they were doing.

The day crept by so slowly it was almost painful. Bard sat on the porch, wrapped in a blanket to protect his skin from the creeping touch of the sun. It was necessary to sit in the light, to let it touch his skin. Gritting his teeth, he slowly extended a hand out from underneath the shade of the awning, into the leaf-dappled sunlight behind. White-hot needles drove into his skin. He could _feel_ his hand blistering, bubbling like cooking fat. But as he stared at it, he saw that his skin remained smooth, unharmed. The pain was in his mind. He stared at his hand until his eyes watered, and then finally snatched it back. As he cradled his fingers against his chest, he did not have to remind himself to gasp for breath.

He could still remember what that felt like to be burned alive. As he had lay in the leaf-litter with his daughter’s body clashed to his chest, the sun had ignited him like a match to gasoline. He had become a droplet of water evaporating in the heat, mold turning pale and dry and cracked under the light. The memory was enough to make his heart pound drunkenly in his chest. The feeling made a hard smile touch his lips. Not so long ago he’d been afraid he would never feel fear like that again.

It was terrible. He hated it. But he would not be a man who could not face the daylight.

Bundling up in a jacket, hat, and gloves to covered as much skin as possible, he forced himself to walk down the road. The trees rustled around him as if gossiping over the strange wounded animal that went limping and cringing from the light that slipped between them. He went as far as he could, torn between constantly flinching from the consuming brightness, and the bitter triumph at staying firm. He was glad for the warmth, too. He was always cold these days.

By the time he made it back to the cabin he was stopping every five paces or so, leaning against trees and struggling to breathe normally, trying not to feel as if he were suffocating within his own meat. And then he finally reached his room, and allowed himself to lay down—the darkness rushed in as quickly as terribly as the dawn.

Later, Bilbo came and left a plate on the table beside him; he could smell its contents before he turned his head. Toast without butter; boiled tomatoes; and chunks of red, rare meat, seeping onto the plate. The toast was the easiest to get down, though it scraped uncomfortably at his mouth and throat. He hadn’t really got the hang of chewing yet. The tomatoes made him gag from the moment they touched his tongue, his body not recognizing their taste as food; he swallowed them quickly all the same. When it came to eat the meat he was most reluctant, but when he put the first piece in his mouth he felt a surge of hunger deep in his gut, a relief so palatable he nearly doubled over with it. He forced himself to eat slowly, chewing awkwardly, though he wanted nothing more to bend his mouth to the plate and lick it clean. He finished his meal feeling sated, and slightly nauseous.

Thranduil pulled into the driveway a few hours after dark, the lights drifting over the dirt path before cutting out entirely. Bard watched from the porch, his nails digging into his palms. Thranduil stepped up to the bottom of the short flight of stairs. The moon was little more than a chewed-off fingernail, but its dim light was more than enough for Bard’s eyes. Thranduil’s hair was tied at the back of his neck, his thick brows drawn into a frown he didn’t seem consciously aware of. Bard’s heart twisted in his chest at the sight of him, along with the familiar confusion that came with it.

“Hello Bard,” he said quietly.

Behind him, Bard was aware of Bilbo stepping through the door. When Bard made no move or sound, Bilbo gently lay a hand on his shoulder. It was warm, but failed to comfort him.

"You’ll be alright,” Bilbo said.

Bard glanced back at him. “Where will you go now?”

Bilbo smiled weakly. “I’m not certain yet. But don’t let that worry you—it doesn’t worry me.”

From the dark doorway behind him, Bard caught a glimpse of Bofur’s outline leaning on the frame. Distantly, he wondered if Bilbo would ask to be turned. But without Thorin, perhaps an eternity was too long to grieve.

Bard held Bilbo’s gaze and gave a short nod of thanks. He didn’t trust his voice, but it seemed to be enough. Bilbo released him, smiled that translucent smile, and went back into the cabin.

Bard walked down the porch steps. He had nothing with him but his clothes; everything he owned and needed. Being with Thranduil was so different from being with Bilbo; where Bilbo was a riot of movement and smells and sensations, Thranduil was like a blank wall. He had no heartbeat, no breath, no warmth. Ever since Smaug, Bard had felt cut off from him on every level; as if the bond between them had been snapped like a brittle bone, leaving a sliver of darkness between them. Bard wondered idly how Thranduil perceived _him_. Whether he missed the steady rhythm of Bard’s heart as much as Bard missed it himself.

Thranduil looked as if he were about to reach out to him, but thought the better of it. “Are you ready?”

Bard nodded.

Thranduil waited nearby as Bard climbed into the car, as if making sure Bard wouldn’t stumble, or bolt. When all the doors slammed shut and Thranduil turned the ignition, Bard felt distinctly as if he were shut up in a trap. As they wound their way down the dirt and gravel road, Bard watched the cabin disappear behind them and tried not to think of what lay ahead.

They drove in silence for a long time. The road flashed by, similar to so many other roads Bard had driven down with Thranduil at his side, and nothing like them, either. Bard didn’t like to watch the road. He felt as if he might get caught on one of the center strips and go hurling back into the past. He watched Thranduil instead, studied him without self-consciousness. Thranduil drove with his hands lightly on the wheel, one thumb drawing small thoughtful circles over its curve. He glanced at Bard—a quick dart of grey eyes, questioning and wary—then returned his attention to the road.

“This seems awfully familiar,” he said. Half his lips smiled, but there was something heavier in his eyes.

Bard laughed. “I was remembering it too.” They had sat much like this, the night they had met, when Bard had felt as if he were crawling out of his skin—but for a different, more familiar reason. He watched Thranduil the way he had wanted to back then. Bard’s senses were so much sharper now; he could smell the soaps that Thranduil had washed with, the detergent on his clothes, the crushed pine and dirt on his boots. Beneath it all, the strange bitter-cold scent of whatever ran in Thranduil’s veins, whatever made him what he was. Bard studied every plane of his face, the hardness of bone and teeth beneath the pale flesh, the green-blue glow of the dashboard making him into something dark and alien and strange, an underwater thing, a strange light in his eyes.

Through it all Thranduil did not turn to look at him; merely let himself be observed. Bard wondered about Thranduil’s memories of that night. Full of a different kind of anticipation, no doubt, a desire Thranduil had fully understood. Bard hadn’t known what he wanted. He thought, perhaps, he knew now.

That thought drew his eyes away, out the window again, where the trees had been pruned back and the farms were starting to appear. He sat quietly. He waited until he could wait no longer, and then he spoke again.

“Do they know I’m coming?”

“Yes.”

Strips of wind-break trees swung by like the hands of a clock. Then there was nothing but the rush of corn crowding by. “What did you tell them?”

“Not everything. They know that things will be different. I told them not to rush you.”

Bard’s fingers tightened on his knees. “Tell me exactly.”

Thranduil sighed. He did not sound particularly surprised. “I told them that you had not yet recovered. That they should not move too quickly around you, that they should under no circumstances run away from you, even if they were simply going to fetch something in a hurry. I told them that you were struggling to eat, and the sunlight poses difficulties. I told them that you were trying as best you could. That you loved them. But that even then, it may not be safe.”

Bard’s throat was tight. “Thank you,” he managed. Thranduil glanced at him sharply, as if hardly believing what he had heard. “I couldn’t bear to have told them that myself,” Bard said. “How did they take it?”

“They seem willing to do whatever it takes to get you home again.”

Bard gripped his wrist with his hand, forcing himself to focus on the beat of his heart there. He breathed in, breathed out, trying to even his pulse. “And if something happens?”

Thranduil’s mouth twisted in a rueful smile. “I’ll have my stake on the ready.”

“If that’s what it comes to.”

“It won’t.”

Bard laughed harshly. He felt very cold. “Don’t say that. You know it might.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“And why not? I almost hurt them before. That and more. God. If I lose control, if I do something...” His vision was beginning to flicker. The breathing wasn’t working.

“Bard,” Thranduil said, a note of concern or warning in his voice.

“I think it’s too soon,” Bard said. He was almost gasping for breath. It seemed his lungs were taking in the air but refusing to do anything with it. “I can’t face them yet. I need more time.”

“There is no more time,” Thranduil snapped. “There is no going back. Do you understand, Bard? You will do this because I say you must.”

“Oh, well if _you_ say I must then who am I to argue?” Bard’s lips pulled back into a grin he didn’t feel. Perhaps he was just baring his teeth.

“You need to breathe, Bard. Remind your body that it’s alive.”

“Stop telling me what to do!” His fingers dug into the side of his head. His vision as beginning to go red. “Just stop—stop—"

Bard lurched in his seat as Thranduil braked hard, pulling off to the narrow margin on the side of the road without another word. From moment they stopped Bard was spilling out of the door, half-running, half-falling onto the grass, down on his hands and knees dragging painful gulps of cold air into his lungs. He was so glad it was nighttime. Sunlight might have killed him.

After a while he realized that his body was no longer desperate to breathe, that his breaths were clearing his mind. He stayed as he was a long while after that, just breathing. He could feel Thranduil standing a short distance away, watching him. That, more than anything, was what forced Bard to sit up, lift his head so he was kneeling on the damp grass.

“May I come closer?” Thranduil’s voice was quiet. Bard nodded shortly. He heard Thranduil’s footsteps move up behind him until they were scarcely an arm’s breadth away. Thranduil crouched down at his side, but did not touch him yet.

“Do you truly wish to return to the cabin?” he asked quietly. “I do not believe you do. In fact, I fear that should you falter now you will never find the courage to set out again. But I _will_ bring you back. If you ask it of me.”

Bard said nothing. He could not trust himself. Whatever the right answer was, it was obscured by the maddening desire to see his children again, and the terror of what he might do to them then.

“Bard.” He felt Thranduil’s fingers tentatively rest on his shoulder. When he did not flinch or shrug them off, Thranduil slid his hand over Bard’s back, gentle but firm.

Bard’s eyes were fixed on the stalks of corn before him, still young and low in the season. “Look at us,” he said with a weak laugh. “What have we done to each other?”  

At his side, Thranduil slowly sank down into a seated position on the grass. “It’s funny,” he said, tilting his head back to stare at the stars. “If I had known what we would do to each other, I would have torn your throat out in the woods when we first met—for my own sake as much as yours. But now, I cannot bring myself to regret that lack of foresight. Perhaps that comes as small consolation to you.” The silence stretched on. When Thranduil’s hand began to slip off his shoulder, he reached up to trap it in place. He turned to look into Thranduil’s eyes where he knelt beside him.

“I asked you once if you would leave.” His grip on Thranduil’s hand was iron. “Is your answer still the same?”

 Thranduil stared at him as if his eyes were trapped. Bard was amazed to see fear in his face; but there was resolution there too. “If you ask it of me, I will do it,” Thranduil said softly. “I will go, and not come back.”

“Why?”

Thranduil’s eyes were infinitely dark, utterly inhuman. He did not answer.

Bard stayed very still for a while longer. In the moonlight Thranduil’s hair looked like it was spun from silver. It was not difficult to memorize his face. Bard had been seeing it cast against his dreams from the moment he’d first laid eyes on it. “In all the time we’ve known each other, I’ve had no choice but to have you in my life. And now—now that I want—” Bard broke off, swallowing hard until his throat loosened enough to speak. “If I were to ask you to stay with me now, it would be no choice at all. Merely accepting a choice that was made for me. Does that make sense?” Bard shook his head. “I need to know who I am, without you. In the aftermath.”

The sound of crickets spilled out of the night, chirping in time with the flickering stars. When he turned to look at Thranduil’s face, he was staring down at the ground. “I can give you that,” he said quietly. “All I ask is one thing in return, though I have no right to do so: one day in the future, when you have the answer you’re looking for—think of me once again. Remember this.” His fingers squeezed Bard’s shoulder; like an echo of a sharp cry, Bard felt something in his blood stirring in response. An old memory, gone as quickly as it came. Bard smiled a bitter smile.

“I will.”

Bard squeezed Thranduil’s hand one final time. Then he rose, and walked back to the car, and got back inside without another word. Thranduil did not ask any questions. He did not make any arguments. Merely remained sitting in the grass a while longer, still as a statue, before following Bard back. The car pulled out onto the road and continued the way they had been going before.

They turned down a gravel road some time later, the corn giving way to a grassy field, clearly unkempt. A house waited at the road’s end, low and quiet. The windows were all full of light, with moths fluttering about them under the eaves.

Bard might have asked how Thranduil found such a place, were it not for the terror that seized his throat. For the front door of the house was opening, and three small figures were crowding into the open doorway, coming out no further.

Bard sat frozen in his seat. Unbidden, his final memories of Sigrid played behind his eyes. Her fear. Her pain. And he had enjoyed it. Nausea twisted his stomach—he couldn’t stand to meet her eyes again. But then he heard Thranduil say his name, once, very softly, but it was enough.

He opened the car door and shakily climbed out. There was a barrage of fierce whispers from the figures in the doorway, a flutter of movement. Bard took one step forward and then another, moving into the porch light. It hurt his eyes. He would not look away.

“Kids?” he called hoarsely, when he could remain silent no more. “It’s me. I’m back.”

As he said it, it seemed to become true. He was here. He was himself. And there were his children, walking down the porch steps, moving so carefully and slowly, but he could see their faces now and they were full of joy, full of relief, as if there was nothing to forgive, and all was well. Bard felt the tears sliding down his face and made no effort to hide them.

“Da,” Tilda cried softly, her footsteps quickening in spite of herself.

Bard laughed and perhaps it was a sob, to see their faces again like he’d thought he never would. He could go no further. He stumbled to one knee on the grass and held his arms out, and Tilda broke free from her siblings and ran like she knew she shouldn’t, legs flying, crashing into his arms. He held her almost tighter than he dared, feeling her tears damp through the shoulder of his shirt and knowing she felt his too, and then Bain was there, falling on them with laughter and tears of his own, and there was Sigrid, Sigrid throwing her arms around them all as if nothing had ever happened, with no fear and no hatred. There was no pull, no hunger. They were his. He would never hurt them.

There would be time. Time for apologies and explanations, time for everything. Bard opened his eyes for a moment and saw another tall figure in the doorway, her long hair hanging loose about her, watching the scene from afar. As she caught Bard’s eye she looked away, and made her way down the porch—Thranduil was waiting for her on the lawn, and Bard met his gaze as if there were nowhere else in the world to look.

The moment was so short. Bard felt the tears on his face, the pain in his chest easing so quickly it hurt even more, a frozen limb submerged in warm water. When he looked at Thranduil a different kind of ache seized his chest, something old and familiar, bittersweet. It seemed that everything they had ever been through together passed between them in that one moment. It was almost too much to bear. Part of him wanted to stand, to reach out, to call _no, wait, stay._ The words dropped down his throat like stones into a well. He could not bring them past his lips. He needed to know that this choice was his to make. To draw the final shard form his heart, to breathe without it pressing inside of him. To be free, and see where that left him.

Tangled in the arms of his children, Bard nodded, slowly, once. After a moment, Thranduil returned it. For everything they meant, for everything they _were_ , it was not nearly enough. But nothing would be.

Bard closed his eyes once more and pressed his cheek to Sigrid’s hair. When he opened them again, Thranduil and Tauriel were gone.

 

* * *

 

_Two years later._

The new house faced the west, where the light of the sun going down behind the hills could bath the front windows in golden light. Bard liked to sit out on the front steps and stare down the hill, where the rest of people in town were making their way home after work, cars hurrying along the quiet roads, the shadows getting longer and bluer until the valley looked like a patchwork quilt. Bard would sit with a book in his lap without reading it, feeling the air grow cooler and the light slip over the edge of the horizon. The touch of the sun still sent a shiver over his skin, as if its heat awakened a terrible cold  that waited in the marrow of his bones. Most days, he could learn to ignore it. On the evenings that he couldn’t, he sat on the back porch and stared out into the woods.  

The house was small, set off on its own at the top of the hill. Its backyard bordered the trees. Sometimes Bard would go for walks after dusk, when the light was dim and purple and the stars just starting to emerge. He knew his way around the woods very well by now. The leaves were beginning to turn and fall. The air was growing crisp once more.

Things were quieter now that Sigrid was at college for most of the spring and fall. Not so long ago, Bard hadn’t thought he’d be able to afford her schooling at all. But back when they were living at the farmhouse, the place Bard still mentally referred to as _Thranduil’s house_ , he’d received a packet on his front porch containing new identification, new credit cards, everything he needed to start a totally new life. There was more money in those accounts than Bard knew what to do with. Once he might have turned away such a gift. Not now.

That was the only contact he’d had with Thranduil in the two years since they’d seen each other. Bard had taken that money and used it to move, buying a new house where the kids could keep going to school, where they could make friends and join clubs and try to relearn the motions of normal lives. They couldn’t forget what they’d been through. But as the months went on, Bard was coming to hope that maybe they could learn to live with it. There was a quiet edge to them that hadn’t been there before, a part of them that had gone beneath the surface of themselves. Bain wanted to be a firefighter. Tilda went for long walks in the woods, but she always came home again.

And Sigrid—the scar on her neck would stay with her for the rest of her life. The shame and anguish Bard felt when he looked at it dulled over the months and years, but it never really went away either.

Bard himself still wasn’t cured. He knew now that he’d never be. There were still nights when he awoke gasping for breath, his body forgetting the need to draw in air while he slept. His heartbeat was an erratic patter in his chest as often as not. He would die, eventually—Bilbo had told him as much. That knowledge had come as a relief.

Bard didn’t get out that much. He walked the woods, he went to the market, he talked to Bain and Tilda’s teachers and was never anything more or less than attentive and polite. Sometimes he would have lunch with a fellow parent, or stop over at the neighbor’s house to talk. He was lonely, yes. It had opened up inside of him like a loose seam tugged open, not long after Thranduil had left. It wasn’t the raw wound he had borne when the two of them first met. It was a distant ache, but not a terrible one. If there was something missing inside of him, Bard knew now he could survive without it.

But perhaps he did not need to.

Bard leaned on the kitchen windowsill one fall evening, watching the sky grow darker. Sigrid was home for the weekend, sitting at the table reading. From the other room Bard could hear the sound of Bain playing video games, knew that in her room Tilda was painting in greys and yellows, the colors of a road under headlights. It was dark outside. Bard lingered by the window, feeling that strange mixture of contentment and loneliness, the happiness that seemed to open him up so that the hollow spaces inside could resonate.

“What are you thinking about?”

Sigrid’s voice called him back. He turned to meet her eyes with a smile. The yellow kitchen light softened the scars that she didn’t bother to cover at home. He knew she was looking as his scars as well—an uglier rope of flesh that twisted all the way under his throat. They had both been marked. But they had both moved on.

He smiled at her. “A lot of things.”

Sigrid set down her book and got up to stand at the other side of the window, following his gaze to the deep purple sky beyond. “I was thinking about _them_.”

He didn’t need to ask her who. “Me too,” he admitted. “And the old house. And your mom.”

Sigrid turned back to him, her arms crossed loosely over her chest. “What would she say, if she could see us now?”

Bard had to chuckle. “She would laugh at us, probably. And tell us to spend less time moping around the house. But she’d be proud of you, Sig. She really would.”

Sigrid’s eyes gleamed before she looked away, her smile contrasted by the faint sadness in her eyes. “I think she wouldn’t want you to be alone,” she said quietly. Bard reached out to squeeze her shoulder gently.

“Maybe not,” he said. “Things don’t always work out the way we want them to.”

“You still miss her.”

“Of course. I always will.”

“Do you miss him?”

Bard was quiet. He didn’t know how to answer it.

Sigrid shook her head and went back to the table. “I’m serious about the moping,” Sigrid said as she glanced up to him one last time. Her eyes and her smile were clearer now, polished from the inside by grief.

Bard laughed again. “Point taken. I’ll find something to do with myself.” He glanced out the window one last time. Something caught his eye that made his heartbeat catch in his chest. A flash of movement from behind the trees. Suddenly he was standing at a different window, years ago, and just as he did in memory he knew who it was he had glimpsed. This time, he was not afraid.

 He turned back to Sigrid with a reassuring smile. “In fact, I think I’ll go for a walk.”

The back door swung shut with a clatter behind him as he stepped off the porch towards the edge of the woods. He had looked at other houses in town, where there was nothing but lawns and fences and the light of other windows all around. None of them had felt right. Part of him still needed this border on the wild. He walked out into the woods, his pace leisurely, following the path he often did on his walks. Before long the light of the house was swallowed by the tree trunks. He felt alone. But he knew better.

He stopped in a partial clearing, moonlight falling in slants across his face. “I know you’re here,” he called softly. “Come out where I can see you.”

There was a brief pause. And then a figure eased out from behind one of the trees further away, and slowly made its way up to him. He recognized Tauriel’s hair, pulled back as it was. She looked almost chagrined as she stopped a short distance away, meeting his eyes in a challenge that she herself did not seem to want to make.

“Tauriel,” Bard said with a smile he felt. Unbelievably, he was glad to see her.

“He doesn’t know I’m here.” She spoke quickly. “In fact, he told me not to come.”

“And yet somehow I keep glimpsing you in the woods whenever my daughter is home. What could that mean?”

Tauriel’s expression soured. For a moment she looked ready to default to her old method of dealing with Bard—threats of graphic violence—before her shoulders sagged and the bravado left her. “I was just keeping tabs. I would never hunt in this area.”

Strange, to hear her speaking of it that way—hunting. This was not just a person Bard was talking to—he was standing before a wild animal, a wolf, a born killer. And yet there was humanity in her. He knew that now. Perhaps one day she’d find it for herself, but that was a different journey and a longer one, and Bard would never see it.

“Where is he?” Bard asked quietly.

Tauriel turned her head, as if listening to something in the distance. “Far away,” she said after a moment. “He doesn’t come here. Once he did, to ensure that you were safe and well, but it seems he takes his promises seriously.”

Bard knew it was true. As distant and untended as the bond between them was, Bard had sensed his presence that night like the flickering of a candle glimpsed out in the woods. Part of him had almost hoped Thranduil might come closer. If he appeared on Bard’s doorstep and asked for an invitation, what would Bard say? He wasn’t sure. In the morning he’d been grateful not to have to find out.

“And is he… is he well?”

Tauriel looked at him as if carefully weighing her words. “He wanders,” she said. “He stopped hunting. I do not see him often enough to tell. In my opinion, you’ve broken him.”

Bard hardly knew he was going to ask the question before it was out of his mouth. But he knew he had only been waiting to say the words. Perhaps for a long time. “If you see him again, tell him—tell him that I’ve discovered my answer. That there is a place for him here.”

Tauriel’s face was impossible to read. But after a moment, she nodded slowly. “I do not know that he will return,” she said. “But I will tell him what you said.”

Bard nodded his thanks. He almost turned to head back for home without another word; but something made him stop. “Tauriel,” he began. “If you’re going to follow my daughter around—and don’t deny that you have been—make sure she doesn’t get into any trouble, will you?”

The surprise on Tauriel’s face was priceless. After a moment, she grinned. “No promises.” She slipped back into the trees before Bard could make a retort.

Shaking his head slowly, he started down the path for home. The house waited just beyond the trees, but it wasn’t waiting only for him.

 

* * *

 

The days went on as they always had; Sigrid went back to school, the leaves fell from the trees, Tilda brought friends over every other day, and Bain joined more clubs than he knew what to do with. Winter drew nearer. On the evenings Bard spent on the porch his breath fogged in the air before him like smoke. He was waiting still, but it felt different. Less like an absence, and more like a rope he was pulling up out of nothing, coming closer and closer to the end. He walked farther every night. He stayed out later, watching the moon wax as the days went on.

It was almost full on the night when he came. Bard watched the sunset as he usually did, and went for his evening walk; by the time he got home there were whorls of frost on the windowpanes, and all the lights inside were dark. For a moment Bard hesitated before the door. The moonlight slanted down onto the porch to paint it white and blue. After a moment he went inside, grabbed a thicker coat and a blanket, then went back outside to sit on the porch again.

He couldn’t explain why he did it. The night seemed no different from any other. But it just felt right, to wait like this; he had the sense that something was about to happen he didn’t want to miss. So he settled onto one of the deck chairs and wrapped the blanket around himself to fight off the chill. Still, he was shivering before long. It almost felt good to feel uncomfortable in the cold. At least his body remembered now that it was supposed to be warm.

 The moon drifted down behind the trees. It threw their shadows over him like grasping hands. Bard could hardly feel his feet; still, he didn’t go inside. He watched the path that he walked every day, until he saw a figure making its way down towards him.

He didn’t stand up; not even as Thranduil paused at the edge of the trees. His pale hair spilled over the collar of his dark grey coat. Bard met his eyes across the distance and said nothing. After a moment more, Thranduil took the final step out of the forest, across the back lawn, to stop just by the porch.

For a long time they were silent. Bard looked at Thranduil’s face for the first time in years and was amazed how different it had become. His cheeks were gaunt, his eyes a darker blue than Bard remembered. He stood with his shoulders slumped, his hands in his pockets. He met Bard’s gaze reluctantly, but with no suggestion he would ever look away.

“The children are sleeping,” Bard said at last.

Thranduil hesitated. For a moment he seemed to take it as a dismissal. But then Bard smiled, a tiny expression that started in his eyes and hardly touched his mouth. “So we should talk quietly,” Bard continued, and gestured to the chair beside him. After a moment’s hesitation, Thranduil sank into it.

Bard couldn’t help but notice the stiffness of his movements, the nervous twitch in the ends of Thranduil’s fingertips which had never been there before. For a long while Bard simply inspected him, and Thranduil endured it calmly, waiting for him to speak.

“You’re different,” Bard said at last. “Tauriel said you hadn’t been feeding.”

Thranduil laughed softly. “She would not consider it such.”

“Animal blood?” Bard stared at him with unmasked confusion. “I thought you said you would never lower yourself to that.”

“You did say that I was different.” Thranduil stared into the woods, his face blank. “I found Legolas after the battle. He helped me to adjust.”

“I thought you would have moved on.” 

Thranduil said nothing. They sat in silence for a long time, sitting so close. Bard could feel his stillness, could smell the detergent on his coat. His heartbeat was a halting patter in his chest. He wondered if Thranduil could feel it. There was a gap like a missing tooth in his mind, a place where the bond between them used to be. It wasn’t dead. Merely waiting.

“I did not expect to see you again.” Thranduil’s voice was so quiet Bard almost didn’t hear him.

Bard folded his hands in his lap, though he could hardly feel them. “Would you really have stayed away forever?”

Thranduil smiled coolly. “I did not think you would need to ask such a question by now.”

“You’re right. I know you would have.” Bard stared at him. “But you never told me why.”

“Is it not enough merely that you asked?” Thranduil laughed hoarsely. “I didn’t know for a certainty that I was going to stay away, until I saw you with your family. Once I brought you back to them, I understood… there was no more place for me.”

Bard looked at him closely. He could see the suggestions of bone under the skin, the tension in his jaw. “That never stopped you before. You were going to make a place whether I wanted it or not.”

“Are you asking for an apology?”

“I think we’re past that now.”

Thranduil stared down at his palms and slowly clasped his hands. “I would offer one if you wanted,” he said without looking up. “But I don’t think it would do any good, and I don’t know that I would truly mean it. I would have left you alone. But now that I’ve seen you again, I don’t think I can anymore.” Thranduil’s eyes darted up to his, and he smiled wryly. “You know by now how selfish I am, Bard.”

It was then that Bard realized how badly Thranduil wanted to reach out to him, to feel his flesh and know that it was solid, here. Or perhaps it was Bard who wanted to reach out.

“I thought I’d give normal life one last try,” Bard said. “I thought the same after my wife died. I think I knew even back then that I could never really go back.”

Bard leaned forward, sliding his hands forward to take Thranduil’s in his own. The night air had chilled him so deeply that Thranduil’s fingers felt no colder than his. Thranduil stared down at their joined hands, his expression unreadable.

“I think it’s my turn to be selfish,” Bard said quietly.

Thranduil slowly turned his hand over to clasp it more tightly. “What do you want, Bard?” he said without looking up.

Bard leaned in. He pressed his forehead to Thranduil’s until he looked up, eyelids fluttering. Bard let his lips brush over Thranduil’s as lightly as a moth fluttering between them. He did it again, and again, until Thranduil pressed back ever so slightly; and that was when Bard kissed him in earnest, lips and tongue and the fog of his breath in the air, but only his.

Thranduil’s hand slipped out of his own and rose to cup the back of his neck—then to grip it. Bard felt his teeth sink into his lip, and gasped but didn’t pull away. He tasted blood, and Thranduil kept kissing him. Something sparked in his mind—an echo long forgotten finding its way back at last. He felt Thranduil like he hadn’t in years, like he’d been afraid to and afraid he never would again. His hunger. His alien nature. The terror of it, and the ecstasy.

Thranduil pulled back for a moment, his pupils so wide there was scarcely any iris. “You taste different,” he said.

Bard thought of Smaug, of the serum, of the recovery that still stretched before him. He reached up to rub a thumb over Thranduil’s lips, smearing the red flower of his own blood that bloomed there. “Good or bad?”

“Good,” Thranduil whispered, opening his mouth to take Bard’s finger in and suck the blood off of it, his teeth scraping the skin without breaking it. “But different.”

Bard slipped his hand down to Thranduil’s throat, resting it there as he kissed a line down Thranduil’s jaw. His neck was smooth and motionless unless he took in a breath to speak, the air trembling in his lungs.

“You know I can’t stay here,” Thranduil said as Bard scraped his teeth over his earlobe. “Your family, this house, I don’t belong—”

“Then don’t,” Bard murmured. “But you will keep coming back. Because you still belong to me.”

He pulled back then, hand still resting over Thranduil’s neck, and looked at him. Thranduil’s eyes gleamed in the darkness. There was no mistaking him for human, not anymore. Bard could feel the threads between them, like a fly feeling the approach of a spider. Or perhaps the other way around. Perhaps this was how Thranduil had felt all those years ago, when Bard had climbed into the car on those dark back roads, the first thread in a web that would cocoon and transform them both. He dragged his thumb over Thranduil’s windpipe and wondered if he would ever be afraid of him again.

It wasn’t a decision. In the end it was almost inevitable. He took Thranduil’s hand and stood up, pulling Thranduil with him. The door to the house was at his back, and he opened it and stepped inside, turning back to meet Thranduil’s eyes and he pulled him forward. As soon as their joined hands reached the threshold Thranduil let go.

He still very still, his eyes uncertain, perhaps even afraid. The darkness inside was as thick and rich as honey. Once he stepped inside it would be very difficult to leave. The rooms stretched out like years, waiting only to feel the soft press of a footfall, the stirring of a word—waiting only for them.

Bard held out his hand. He knew what he was offering. From the look in Thranduil’s eyes, he knew it just as well. Not just a way into the house, into the life within. Bard’s fingers prickled in the cold from the open door. After a moment longer, Thranduil reached out to take them. It was cool beneath Bard’s touch, and Bard gently lifted it to his lips and pressed a kiss to the knuckles. Slowly, mercilessly, he drew Thranduil past the threshold, into the darkness beyond.

It was invitation enough.


	32. Part Three: Epilogue

_Many decades later._

It was a small ceremony. Tilda and Bain were there, of course, as well as a handful of people from town who’d made the trip out. Sigrid stood in the small and somber crowd as the last words were said, a few people speaking up with fond memories before they lowered the coffin into the earth. She said nothing, and her eyes were dry. She’d cried, of course, but in private and not very much. This was a different kind of grief, slower and smaller, a worm in her marrow.

People stood in respectful silence as the grave was filled, quiet conversations springing up among them. It was a sad time, but many people were smiling; for the man they were burying today had lived a good life, a full life, and all men have their time to rest. Many drifted away after the last layer of dirt was smoothed on the grave. They’d rented a place in town for the wake, and Sigrid knew it was going to be a merry gathering, just as he would have wanted. She waited by the side of the grave, staring at the tombstones until she felt like stone herself.

The marker, beneath his name, read “Beloved Father”. The one beside it, worn with age and a small coating of moss, read “Beloved Mother”. Sigrid could remember the day they’d buried her, so very long ago. She’d been silent then too, her throat too tight to cry. What was harder to remember was the way her mother’s smile had looked. She studied photographs carefully, trying to reconstruct it. How many years ago had she seen it last? She’d just finished the third grade. And now her hair was grey and her bones ached in the damp spring air, and she’d lived far longer than her mother had the chance to.  

A hand settled gently on her shoulder. She turned to face the gentle smile on Tilda’s face.

“Will you come back with us?” she asked. Bain was standing a short distance away, his hands shoved in his pockets. When he saw Sigrid looking he waved. He looked so much like their father.

Sigrid reached up to squeeze her sister’s hand. “I think I’ll stay a little longer. You go on without me. Someone has to keep the party going.”

“Just like Ma and Da would have wanted,” Tilda said. She glanced at Bain behind them. “You’ll be okay?”

Sigrid nodded. “I’ll be fine. Don’t wait up for me.”

Tilda knew enough by then not to press her. She merely stepped forward to wrap her sister in a hug, which Sigrid returned tightly. And then Tilda linked arms with their brother and wandered down the grassy pathways through the gravestones, leaving Sigrid alone. The sun was beginning to drift near to the horizon, the light golden and the shadows blue.

Sigrid stood for a long time, thinking, quiet. A while after that she sat down, her nice dress be damned, because her knees were getting sore and she might be here a while yet. She reached into her bag and pulled out a sweater—she got so cold these days—a book, and a small packed meal. With that, she settled in to wait.

Counting the hours was useless. She watched as the sun sank lower and lower, painting the clouds red and gold as it completed its death throes. Dusk settled in. She stood up sometimes to pace, stretching stiff muscles. Ruefully she thought it might have been wiser to leave and come back; she wasn’t as young as she used to be, to skulk around graveyards all night long. But it felt right to be here, and she was afraid that if she left she would never come back.

The sun fled behind the hill, dragging darkness behind it. Night gathered around her, familiar, soothing. As the hours wore on, Sigrid settled back down on the grass and stretched out so she was lying at the foot of her parent’s graves, her bag beneath her head.

She thought she had only closed her eyes for a moment, but when she started awake the moon was a bright nail-sliver balancing on top of the sky. The wind played softly with the strands of her hair—silence seeped out of the earth as if it radiated out of the dead themselves. As Sigrid sat up, joints creaking, the tall shadow above her did not move.

Rising to her feet, Sigrid stood beside him. He did not look at her—he did not look anywhere but at the graves. His face twisted long-dulled memories of terror, bitter smoke and terrible darkness. Looking at him now, she knew she had nothing to fear. His face had not aged, but it had changed in some other way; grown into itself with the joy and sorrow that came from touching life.

Sigrid knew how grief could shatter a person, could scrape up the pieces and turn them into something unrecognizable. She’d seen it in her family—she’d felt its violence in herself. But she hadn’t realized how love could do the same thing until she saw what her father had done to Thranduil.

“I knew you would come,” she said.

Thranduil turned to look at her. His eyes were brighter than she remembered, like rings of silver in the darkness before they turned back to her father’s grave. “I had to.”

Sigrid nodded. They stood like that for a while, contemplating the stones. Even here, with the proof irrefutable in front of her, it was still difficult for her to believe that her father was dead. She had seen him not two weeks ago, and he hadn’t seemed so different from the last time she’d visited; quieter perhaps, his eyes tending to wander out the window during the daytime. She wouldn’t have believed his age if she hadn’t known it for a fact; his hair had never gone any farther than grey, and though the wrinkles ran deep on his face, it was not so very different from the face Sigrid had grown up with. Though her father seemed to age slower than most, she could see the wear of years in his eyes.

But at night he seemed to become his old self again, laughing and joking and asking after her life, her job, her siblings. When she’d excused herself with jetlag in order to go to bed, she’d left him sitting by himself on the porch with the door open to let the spring air in. She’d turned back for a moment, seen him through the doorway; and there Thranduil was, standing at Bard’s side with a hand on his head, gently stroking his steel-grey hair. As he’d always been. 

Sigrid watched Thranduil’s face before she spoke. “You ended it, didn’t you?” She didn’t truly need to ask. She could see it in the smoothness of Thranduil’s skin, the healthy glow that came off of him. He’d fed recently, and fed deeply.

“He asked me to.” Thranduil’s voice was soft, his eyes unwavering from the tombstone. “He knew it was time.” Thranduil’s eyes were locked on the tombstone. “Sometimes I thought that dying was his revenge on me,” he said.

Sigrid looked at him with pity. “You fell in love with a mortal. This was how it had to end.”

“How do you stand it?” Thranduil looked at her so intensely she felt like a cobra caught in a mongoose’s gaze, but there was nothing predatory in Thranduil’s eyes. Only a kind of desperation. “Loving things that change and fall apart and fade away to nothing. How are you strong enough?”

“If they never changed and died, they’d be like you.” Sigrid said it gently, with no malice. Still, Thranduil looked away. She had forgotten how to hate him a long time ago, but she did not know what kinder emotions might have arisen in its place. He was her father’s, only ever a visitor in her life.

“Was he happy?” Sigrid asked. The question was so large that she almost laughed, at the thought that either of them could carry it; _did he live a good life? Did the years pass easier with you by his side? Did he love you as much as you love him?_ And yet as she asked it, she already knew the answer—even before Thranduil turned to her with a quiet softness around his mouth.

“I believe he was.”

They stood quietly for a long time. There were hours yet until sunrise. But she’d stay as long as necessary, even as her eyes felt dry and sore from being open for too long. Thranduil was as still as a tree in winter.

 “I can still feel him,” he whispered at last. “The warmth. The comfort. I carry him with me.” He lifted a hand to touch his own cheek, feeling her father’s blood still lingering there. He closed his eyes. “It’s more than just the blood.”

Pity curled in her stomach. Her father had shared only one lifespan with him, hardly a blink in the course of Thranduil’s millennia; and yet he had changed. Sigrid could see it. How deep it could go, she wasn’t certain. Perhaps her father had hoped. Perhaps he’d seen more than she was able to.  “Do you want to be alone?”

“No,” Thranduil said, and that was that. Sigrid settled back onto the ground and pressed her palm to the grass, wondering if her parents could still reach out, too.

The hours passed. She checked her watch: 5:30. Dawn was coming, but Thranduil showed no sign of moving. She rose on stiff limbs, her joints groaning at the protest. When she stepped up to Thranduil’s side again she saw in the dim light that his face was slack, empty, as if he were somewhere far away.

“Thranduil.” He started at his name, and looked at her in bewilderment; as if he’d forgotten she was there. “The sun.”

He turned back to the tombstones. It seemed he was struggling with some kind of decision; wondering, perhaps, whether to sit down on the freshly turned earth and let the sun find him. He stepped forward and leaned in to press a kiss to the rough stone of Bard’s headstone, then turned his back again. Sigrid understood that it would not be the last time Thranduil paused before these stones, waited to see which way the balance would tip, into night or into day. The same choice, every time. Bard would always be here, waiting for him under the sun.

Sigrid expected him to leave without another word, drifting away as he always did. Instead, he stopped in front of her. His eyes fixed on her face as if searing it onto his memory. Slowly, his hand rose to touch her cheek, the merely brush of fingertips. They were warm.

“I can see him in your face,” he said, his voice dull with grief.

Slowly, Sigrid reached out to clasp his hand. It was warm, yielding—almost human. “I can see him in yours.”

Surprise flitted over Thranduil’s features. It seemed he almost laughed, gratitude twisting his face into something almost human. They stood like that for a long time, the threat of daylight creeping closer.

A faint smile touched Thranduil’s lips before he spoke again. “I never wished to become this.” His eyes settled on Bard’s tombstone one final time. “But I became it for him.”

He let go of her hand.

Thranduil left her there, turning to walk through the rows of graves with his hands in his pockets and his head bowed, the deep blue of pre-dawn light turning his hair the color of ash. It was how Sigrid always remembered him, when she thought of him in years to come; not in blood or terror, but quiet, grieved, forever changed. But when she thought of his back disappearing into the trees at the edge of the graveyard, she would always think of her father slipping between the branches at his side.

Though she sometimes visited Bard’s grave after the sun went down, she never saw Thranduil again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here we are. After over two years and almost 250,000 words, In The Woods Somewhere has finally reached its end.
> 
> This story would never have been finished if it weren’t for some very special people, who stood by me during the good times and the bad. I want to thank Julie, for all the love and dedication and fanart she’s poured into this fic from the very beginning. I want to thank Kyra, for reminding me to be proud of this fic even though she will never read it herself ;). And I want to thank Sarah, for agreeing to beta this crazy thing, for the hours and hours spent talking about this fic while pacing around my neighborhood block or sitting in the middle of the actual woods thousands of miles from home.
> 
> And most of all, I want to thank all the people who have read this fic; for all the comments and love that all of you have poured out over the years. I would never have completed this project if it weren’t for all of you. We carried this thing to the finish line together, and I will never forget that.
> 
> This fic has been incredibly lucky to receive many awesome fanworks by talented readers. If you made something for ITWS and it isn’t listed here, please let me know!
> 
>  **Fanmixes**  
>  by [agentbreedlove](http://agentbreedlove.tumblr.com/post/108221320843/the-darkness-hummed-listen-the-hunger-which/): [ The Darkness Hummed](http://8tracks.com/agentbreedlove/the-darkness-hummed/)  
> by [agentbreedlove](http://agentbreedlove.tumblr.com/post/134809909873): [undead undead undead](http://8tracks.com/agentbreedlove/undead-undead-undead%E2%80%9D>undead%20undead%20undead</a>%0Aby%20<a%20href=)  
> by [wanderingchild](http://wanderingchild.tumblr.com/post/157222266316/these-country-roads-were-rarely-traveled-by-any) : [in the woods somewhere](http://8tracks.com/wanderingchild/in-the-woods-somewhere)  
> by [wanderingchild](http://wanderingchild.tumblr.com/post/157222653171/its-what-he-does-he-wants-you-to-be-his-and): [he’s going to eat you](http://8tracks.com/wanderingchild/he-s-going-to-eat-you)  
> by [oldassgandalf](http://oldassgandalf.tumblr.com/): [the moon will light my way](http://8tracks.com/ivk/the-moon-will-light-my-way)  
> by [ias](http://silvergrasp.tumblr.com/): [the darkness got a hold on me](http://8tracks.com/ias/the-darkness-got-a-hold-on-me#smart_id=dj:3025498)
> 
> **Fanart**  
>  by apfelstrudelz: [a scene from chapter 3](http://apfelstrudelz.tumblr.com/post/115073334389/shrugs-i-just-rly-like-curmudgeonys-in-the)  
> by piyo-13: [a scene from chapter 17 ](http://piyo13sdoodles.tumblr.com/post/135613024951) (gif)  
> by julie: [ a cover for the fic as a whole](http://miryokae.tumblr.com/post/150687558107)  
> by julie: [in the woods somewhere mandalas](http://miryokae.tumblr.com/post/137443882802)  
> by julie: by julie: [“I can’t leave. Not really.”](http://miryokae.tumblr.com/post/140505194847)  
> by julie: [a portrait of Thranduil](http://miryokae.tumblr.com/post/156771226632/couldnt-draw-bard-without-thranduil-now-could-i)
> 
>  **Graphics**  
>  by wanderingchild: [a graphic of Thranduil.](http://silvergrasp.tumblr.com/post/119091588257/wanderingchild-the-hunger-which-had-driven-him)  
> by northerntrash: [a moodboard.](http://northerntrash.tumblr.com/post/132020280487)  
> by terribleoldwhitemen: [a design for itws as a printed novel.](http://terribleoldwhitemen.tumblr.com/post/155016947575/ias-fics-as-books-in-the-woods-somewhere-x)
> 
>  **Cosplay:**  
>  by kesstiel: [a cosplay of vampire thranduil. ](http://kesstiel.tumblr.com/post/134758959262)
> 
> Once again, all my love and gratitude to every last one of you. Thank you for reading, and as always you can find more updates on me and my work on [my tumblr.](http://silvergrasp.tumblr.com/)


End file.
